The Girl in the Looking Glass
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: AU. Edwardian. Lily Evans is a spirited young woman whose arranged marriage and domineering family has left her despairing. James Potter has never met her, but he's about to change her life.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: This story has suffered through several re-writes since I started it back in 2006, but I promise you that this is the last one. It is set in the Edwardian Era, but if you're looking for exact and precise detail, you're probably going to be disappointed. I have done some small research into that period, but having not lived over one hundred years ago, I wouldn't confess myself to be any great knowledge on the matter. It is an alternate universe story, but I'm going to keep the characters as canon as possible. Any changes are necessary to the plot, but I will not deviate from the personalities given to the characters by Rowling because if I did, it wouldn't really be fan fiction, would it?**

**Prologue**

The dress was a dull, navy colour, swathed tightly around her waist and ending just beneath her chin. It fastened with large, gold buttons. Long sleeves clung to her slender arms and white lace hung over her pale, fidgeting hands. The skirt was large and heavy, but would have been less restricting had it not been for the many underskirts and petticoats it concealed. She wore no jewellery save for the gold pendant her mother had given her for her last birthday, and her long hair was rolled up into a tight bun.

The dresser stood back to admire her handiwork and her surveying mother clasped her hands together and sighed contentedly. This had been exactly the effect that Catherine Evans had been aiming to achieve; a pretty, well-mannered daughter, the epitome of decorum and dignity. When Mr Chamberly came to dinner he would be sure to fall for her, for what man couldn't? There would be a wedding within a year, and Mrs Evans would finally be able to relax in the knowledge that both of her daughters had made wealthy and suitable matches.

"You look beautiful, my darling," she breathed, smiling ever still as she clasped her daughter's hand tightly. "Simply beautiful."

"I can't but help feel anxious, mother," said her daughter quietly, gazing at Catherine with large, imploring eyes. "I have never experienced a meeting like this before. What if he does not like me?"

"He shall be quite smitten with you, my darling, and rightfully so," Catherine insisted, with another loving smile. "What man would not want a wife as accomplished and beautiful as my wonderful girl?"

The daughter blushed quite endearingly, and Catherine stroked her pretty face.

"I shall go downstairs and see that Russell has set the table correctly. How he does dawdle," she said, her tone now crisp and business-like, turning to the dresser. "I don't want to take any risks this evening. Everything must be perfect, for poor Lily's sake. Come, Mary, and leave my daughter to herself for a few minutes. She will want a moment alone to prepare."

Mrs Evans swept regally from the room, with her ever faithful servant following closely behind her. The smile of servility was immediately dropped from the young girl's face as she turned around to survey what she believed to be her own disgusting reflection in the looking glass. She and her mother viewed matters with two entirely different sets of eyes. If Catherine Evans thought her daughter beautiful in her fashionable garb, her daughter was of the opinion that the whole effect was hideously ugly.

It was too tight, this dress. Her father, who to his credit, did not know much about his daughter's tastes and had merely picked it up on the advice of others, had given it to her just the other day - a gift from Paris. It was the latest design, apparently, and her mother had been delighted when it was found to fit her most perfectly. She exclaimed that this was just the dress her daughter could wear when Mr Chamberly was to come. It gave just the right impression - of a wealthy, innocent girl, with a pleasing figure and a stately manner. It clung to her body like a bandage.

It was like her shroud, she thought morbidly, a manner of thinking which she generally found to be most unattractive and shameful. She would be embarrassed for herself later, but at the present moment she was consumed by misery of the acutest kind. It was not to be helped.

The pendant, an old heirloom, had been passed from generation to generation of youngest daughters for many years. It was an antique, and worth probably more than the dress, in the shape of a swan with intricate patterns, all completely in gold.

But she hated gold jewellery. To her, it looked cheap and tasteless.

Her mother had called her beautiful, and she supposed she could agree with that, to a certain extent. She was tall and slender with a pale complexion, a pretty nose, rosy cheeks, and an attractive, alluring smile. They were all admirable physical qualities, to be sure, but not uncommon in healthy young ladies. Her eyes were what garnered the most attention, for they really were undeniably stunning.

Emerald green, almond shaped, and extremely expressive, most people were wont to tell Lily that her eyes were incomparably beautiful, but she absolutely hated them. She hated them because no matter how much she smiled and laughed and pretended to be jolly, her eyes would always give away her true feelings with an obviousness that her mother was constantly scolding her for. She thought Lily did it deliberately, as a rebellion, but all the practice in the world had not given Lily the power to hide it yet.

Something she loved, almost as much as she hated her eyes, was her hair. Her hair truly did signify the pent-up personality that Lily was in possession of, but she did not realize this, and merely loved it because she dearly loved the colour. Her hair was red; not a carroty red, nor a blondish red, but a dark, fiery red. It was thick, wavy and abundant. When she let it down, it would tumble down past her shoulders and land at her waist, and it really was a thing of beauty to behold.

Long before she reached the age of coming out and doing her hair up, her mother insisted that she prepare herself for womanhood by keeping her hair tied up at all times. For the last two years, at the end of the day, she would let it down and twirl in front of the mirror, feeling free for just a few moments, before she would tie it into her nightcap and hide it once more.

Her mother had called her accomplished, but Lily did not consider herself to be so. She could play the piano perfectly, read French and German most easily, sing beautifully, draw, sew, knit and crochet, and this was all that her parents, and indeed, society, seemed to think she needed as an education. No one knew how she would sneak down to the library in the dead of night and read as many books as she could find, books that her mother had deemed inappropriate for a young lady. No one knew of her interest in politics, in travel, in the lives of the lower classes, or in literature. No one knew how she had befriended the servants. No one knew what she would practice in the dead of night, or how adept she was at it. No one knew how good an actress she really was, if she were able to keep everybody so in the dark about how ill-suited she was to her life.

She smoothed a stray hair and fixed a smile upon her face. There was to be a dinner that night. Her father's business partners would be in attendance, as would some of her mother's acquaintances, her sister, her sister's husband, and his cousin, Mr Edward Chamberly; the man she was to be betrothed to. He had spotted her a month ago at a county ball and enquired as to whom the enchanting redhead was, and when her mother had gotten wind of this fact she had invited him over to their next dinner on the spot. It was widely known that the rich, charming and handsome Chamberly was looking for a wife, and her daughter was just the right age to marry. Lady Catherine had spent the better part of the day giving her daughter instructions.

Agree with everything Mr Chamberly says, remember to curtsey, sit up straight, don't talk too much and don't talk too little - she knew it all by heart now. She had heard it all before, when her sister had been looking for a husband. As opposed to her, Petunia had been most delighted at the prospect of being betrothed and as luck would have it, had managed to marry a man she loved dearly. Somehow, Lily doubted that the same would happen to her.

But, there wasn't time to worry about that now, for her mother was calling her. She walked sedately towards the door, breathing in and out as deeply as her dress would allow her, and going over appropriate dinner conversation in her mind. Before she opened the door, she turned back and looked once more at the girl in the looking glass.

She would go downstairs, have dinner, smile graciously at compliments, behave charmingly, and have a lovely time.

And then she would sign her life away.


	2. Broken, Healed, Shattered

**Broken, Healed, Shattered**

When Lily Elizabeth Evans was eleven years old, a curious little letter, written on yellowed parchment and sealed with red wax, had sailed right through her window and landed on her bed, where she had been innocently and innocuously sat reading a fairy story. A letter which, upon her reading of it, explained everything she had previously been unable to fathom about herself, and sent her straight into a dizzying realm of delight.

Finally, here was an explanation for all of the mysterious happenings that had been occurring around her since her early infancy. It explained why her hair would grow back the day after it was cut. It explained why the porridge she detested would vanish completely from the bowl every morning when her parents weren't looking. It explained why, on one occasion when she had snuck down to the servant's quarters and her mother had almost caught her, she had managed to disappear from the spot she had been standing in and reappear inside her own bedroom mere moments later.

She had thrown her book aside in giddy excitement, raced downstairs to the drawing room and announced to her mother, father, three businessmen and their wives -

"Mother, father, I'm a witch!"

Her parents had laughed airily, explaining to their guests that their youngest daughter had quite an overactive imagination and liked to play pretend games with her sister. Initially, the guest of the family had been quite charmed by the youngest Evans girl and her whimsical disposition, but Lily had refused to concur with such nonsense. It was only when she refused to be quiet, insisting that she was a witch, and that she had the letter to prove it, that her mother dragged her from the room and berated her for embarrassing herself and her father in front of such important and dignified people. Without being given the chance to explain herself, she was brought up to her room and locked there for the rest of the day as punishment for lying so shamelessly, although her father, being of a softer touch than Catherine, had seen to it that her meals were smuggled up to her throughout the course of the day.

The mysterious letter had come from Hogwarts, a school for witchcraft and wizardry. It told her that she was being offered a place in the school, enclosed a list of books and equipment that she was to purchase and directions to a place named Diagon Alley, and was signed by a woman named Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress. That was all Lily knew for certain, but it was enough to make her happier than she had ever been before or since. The next day, her mother and father were finally shown the glorious letter, but their reaction was not what Lily had expected or hoped for. In her naivety, she had believed that her parents would be as delighted and proud as she was to learn that she had been selected to attend such a wonderful school. In fact, they had been horrified.

They had taken the letter from her, forbade her to mention it to anyone outside of the immediate family, and written back to inform this 'McGonagall character' that their daughter would not be attending Hogwarts.

And Lily's heart had broken.

Being a rather stubborn and unruly child, she had not easily given in to their demands. She kicked and screamed, threw things, upturned tables, cried, and took care to make a spectacle of herself whenever they had company. She acted in this way this for exactly a month until the idea came to her that she could refuse to eat and her father, who had not been quite as eager as her mother to forbid her from going to the school in the first place, had eventually agreed to a compromise, lest his precious daughter allow herself to fall grievously ill. The compromise was that she could go to Diagon Alley in London, buy a wand, books and anything else she needed to teach herself magic in the safety of her own home, and practice her little fairy tricks in secret. For a small period of time, he also considered visiting the school with her and talking to the Headmaster, but on the subject of school her headstrong mother was unmovable. She would not be attending such a place, and that was final.

This small window of opportunity had been enough for Lily. Accompanied by her father, she bought everything he would permit and proceeded to throw herself into learning magic in her free time. Her determined and horrified mother tried to hinder her as much as possible, sending her to visit relatives, busying her free days with music lessons and calls, even letting her take riding lessons on her very own horse, something she had always wanted but had previously been forbidden to do, but nothing could quench Lily's desire. Despite Catherine's best efforts, Lily flourished under her own teaching. Showing an intelligence beyond her years and an aptitude that would have shocked her had she known other magical people of her age, she quickly mastered basic magic and now, at the age of eighteen, she was almost as qualified as any Hogwarts seventh year, although she thought herself not to be. After all, who did she have to compare herself with?

Her parents were very unaware of the magnitude of her powers, Lily having feigned an increasing disinterest in magic as she grew older. That way she was left alone, got no grief from her mother, and Catherine had eventually allowed her to stop visiting her awful aunt and uncle every summer. All in all, Lily had been reasonably content, that was, until Petunia got married.

Petunia was Lily's senior by three years, and they were as similar as black and white in looks as well as personality. Petunia was tall and tanned, with blonde hair, pale blue eyes, a long neck, and a boyish frame. Her only ambition in life was to marry and bear children, an ambition that had been fulfilled two months ago, when she had given birth to her first son, Dudley. Her marriage to Mr Vernon Dursley had been widely publicized throughout England and she had moved to London with him, where she was blissfully happy. Lily was thrilled for her sister, but in a way, knowing how contented Petunia was only served to make her even more unhappy.

Lily wasn't as easily pleased as her sister, she wanted many things in life. Many were things she knew she could never have, like a proper magical education, and she had resigned herself to that fate. On bad days, she liked to dream about escaping from her family and starting again as an ordinary person, free to make her own choices. Sometimes she would contemplate cutting all her hair off and jumping on a ship or a train. Living as a boy would be a small price to pay for her freedom, but she could never bring herself to do it, for it would hurt her father so deeply. She longed to be able to have a career like her father, maybe as a nurse, a writer, or even (when she was feeling really daring) as an Auror. She longed to be able to say exactly what she wanted, whenever she wanted. All of these were dreams she knew she could never realize, and she had learned to be content.

When her mother announced that it would be _she_ who would be choosing a suitor for her daughter, Lily's heart, the heart that had been broken at eleven and gradually pieced back together, had shattered with no hope of repair, and she was positive that there was no way that she could recover from it. By nature, Lily was passionate and romantic. The idea of falling in love was important to her, the one dream she had that hadn't yet been quashed. However, she knew from seventeen years of experience that her mother's idea of a good husband differed from hers in almost every possible way.

She knew of the exact type of man that her mother wanted for her. He would be well educated, well dressed, well mannered, wealthy, traditional, non-confrontational and sensible, all of which were admirable qualities, she could admit. With a husband like that, she would live a comfortable life, surrounded by every luxury she could ask for. She would have to do nothing but smile prettily, arrange parties, and agree with his every word. She would not even have to love him.

The man of her dreams would, like herself, put no importance on status or money. He would respect her and listen to her opinion. He would argue with her and argue heatedly; Lily knew that she needed someone with whom she could argue. He would do things on the spur of the moment. He would not be constantly well-groomed and polite, and he would say what he thought as opposed to saying what he ought to say. Most importantly, the man she loved would surely be the man who allowed her to realize her other dreams. Otherwise, why would she love him? And it may have been possible to find such a man, but in order to marry him she would need her parents' blessing.

As a child, she would revel in the world of handsome princes and knights, brave, daring men who would go to any lengths to rescue their love. As she got older and yearned for freedom, she fantasized more about being able to rescue herself, but she also realized quite quickly that, being a woman, she couldn't change her situation. She hadn't the respect or the power. Only a man could change things for her, even though she wanted the ability to do it herself more than anything. She needed to be rescued.

Telling herself that her prince didn't exist did nothing to help her. In her heart of hearts, she knew that there were men like that in the world, there had to be. She would just never have one for herself. Maybe if she had been able to experience the other things she wanted, it would not be so painful, but as it was, it was tearing her apart.

* * *

"Allow me to introduce to you my youngest daughter, Lily."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, and may I say how charming you look this evening?" said Mr Chamberly, bowing low as he took her hand.

"Thank you, Mr Chamberly," Lily replied, as she curtseyed. "It's so lovely to finally make your acquaintance. I have heard many wonderful things about you from my brother-in-law."

"Oh dear, what _has_ my cousin been telling people?"

She laughed politely at his weak joke, just like her mother had told her. Lily was used to banter like this, it was common fare at dinner parties just like this one, and she wondered dully whether she could ever get used to spending the rest of her life having uninteresting conversations that lacked in meaning or intellect, with a man who did not consider her equal to a conversation of any great depth.

After being briefly introduced to Messrs Davenport, Hastings, Spencer and their wives, and the very briefest of greetings with Petunia and Vernon, Lily found herself seated directly beside Chamberly. He was, just as Lily had expected, pristine and presentable; tall and burly with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, a rather large nose and a serious disposition. There was nothing remarkable in his manner, conversation or otherwise, but he seemed nice and respectful, so Lily tried to count her blessings and reminded herself that it could have been worse. He was a successful solicitor, and he had two houses, one in London, where Lily presumed they would be living after she married him, and one in Brighton, beside the seaside, which only served to cheer her up slightly.

Unbeknownst to her, that house in Brighton would bring about an even bigger change in her life than discovering she was a witch had done.

"Your mother tells me that you can read French."

"And German," Lily began, but then bowed her head upon seeing the expression on her mother's face. It would not do to appear arrogant. "Of course, I am not particularly adept at either, sir."

"Nonsense, my darling," her mother cut in, all fondness. She, of course, was at perfect liberty to brag about her daughter. "She is quite marvellous at both."

"I spent several summers in France during my youth," said Chamberly amiably. "It would please me to go back one day. In fact," he cleared his throat and went on, with a significant look in Catherine's direction. "I am hoping that I may soon be bringing a wife there, on a wedding tour."

Lily started to have some difficulty swallowing her lamb, but he mother was beaming in delight.

"What an excellent idea, Mr Chamberly!" Catherine exclaimed. "You know, Lily has long expressed a desire to travel to France."

"Have you?"

Sure that she was red in the face; she eventually managed to choke down her meat and smiled.

"Yes, I would love to," she said simply. "One day."

"Ah," Chamberly gave her a knowing look, evidently making up his own mind about what her red face signified. "Then perhaps one day you shall."

The evening wore on, and to Lily's dismay, she found Mr Chamberly was clearly enamoured by her. He paid her many quaint compliments, stared at her a great deal, and asked her far too many questions about herself. Despite her best efforts to act happy and interested, she found herself becoming quiet and staring at her plate, only half listening as general conversation turned to Chamberly's practice in London, her father's business, the recent wedding of Mr Davenport's daughter, Annabelle, to a prince she met at a ball in Monaco, then to the balls being held around Cheshire, and then…

"Lily is quite an accomplished dancer, you know," Catherine was saying, as she sipped on a glass of wine. "One of the finest in Cheshire, I always say."

"Indeed, I couldn't help but notice last month, at the county gala."

"Correct me if I am wrong, Mr Chamberly," her mother pressed on. "But is it true that you yourself will be holding a ball in August?"

"Yes I am, at the end of July, to be precise. It will be at my summer home in Brighton. In fact, I was rather hoping that your family might join me there for a month or more. Vernon and Mrs Dursley are going to be there, along with little Dudley, of course. Would her Lady, Mr Evans, and Miss Lily like to come and stay?" he asked, directing the question more toward Lily than anyone else.

Lily attempted to conceal her rolling eyes. The conversation was so rehearsed that she was surprised he didn't have it written on his hand.

"Why, what a marvellous idea! Charles?" her mother cried, gesturing to her husband to listen. Lily's father looked up from a deep discussion he had been having with one of his associates. "Wouldn't it be marvellous if we were to take a little holiday to Mr Chamberly's house next month?"

"I'm sure it would," said Charles, perhaps slightly unenthusiastically, although it was difficult to tell. Charles Evans always let his wife have her way in anything, no matter what his opinions may have been to the contrary. "I hope we would not be imposing upon you?"

"Not at all," Chamberly assured him. "I enjoy the company, and I would love to become more familiar with your charming daughter."

Lily desperately tried to suppress the reddening of her face once more, this time not with embarrassment, but with rage. Edward Chamberly was beginning to talk as if their marriage was an accepted fact and her mother was quite obviously raising her eyebrows and stealing smug glances at her husband as though she quite agreed with him. It was ridiculous; Lily had not even accepted Chamberly yet, nor had there been any talk of a proposal, and yet everyone sitting around the table was quite sure that this man was going to be her husband! And as for the rehearsed conversation! She had a sudden urge to stand up, pull her hair out of the stupid bun and scream that she would rather die than be this man's property.

But she would accept him, because that was the plan. She was to marry him, bear his children, and accept her position in life as a lady should. Nothing more and nothing less.

No one was going to save her.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, in a majestic castle that stood proudly among mountains, casting a shadow over a glittering lake and a mysterious forest and brimming with a magical, unfathomable excitement, a young man sat on a window ledge in the northernmost tower, staring at out the sky.

Lily Evans knew nothing of this man, but she soon would.

He was going to save her.

And his name was James Potter.


	3. The Marauders

**The Marauders**

"Holy Merlin, is that a _rabbit_?"

The happy chatter that usually filled the Gryffindor common room on the last night of term was punctuated by screams, some of terror, and some of mirth, as an oversized rabbit tore through the multitudes of students, tearing at trousers and stockings and robes. Apart from its enormity, the rabbit's appearance was made all the more frightening due to the razor sharp fangs protruding from its mouth, and a pair of flashing, maniacal red eyes. Clearly, this was not the type of rabbit generally found in any part of the country.

In one warmly lit corner, three young men were sitting around a piece of parchment, lazily observing the various efforts their classmates were putting into controlling the rampaging rabbit. If they were trying to appear inconspicuous, however, they were being badly let down by Peter Pettigrew, who was currently squeaking with laughter. He was a short, red faced, plump boy (even though he had reached the age of maturity, Peter Pettigrew was wont to be referred to as a boy due to his childlike appearance) of eighteen, with small, beady eyes, and rodent-like teeth. Not many people in the school could say confidently that they really _knew_ Peter Pettigrew, as he was an extremely bashful chap, but he was pleasantly amiable, extremely placid, and was an enemy of no one, so he was generally considered to be quite likeable.

Beside Peter sat a thin, sandy haired, brown-eyed man whose immediate air was one of sensibility, reliability, and poise. He was polite and soft-spoken by nature, and held in a considerable amount of respect by his peers, possessing the handy knack of being instantly liked by those he met. He would often appear to be tired or pale, due to his supposed frequent illnesses, but was only his closest friends who knew of his real ailment, Lycanthropy. At that moment in time, Remus Lupin was pouring over the piece of parchment that lay between the three friends, his brow furrowed, and his wand tracing something only he could see.

The tallest, and probably most prominent of the three, who at that moment was directing the rabbit around the common room with his wand in a surreptitious manner, was a pale and classically handsome youth, with long, elegant black hair that fell gracefully into his roguish grey eyes. He was usually to be found posing in a corner somewhere, eyebrows lowered and arms folded, seemingly disinterested in his surroundings.

If a more observant person than the average Hogwarts student had taken a closer look at Sirius Black, they would notice that his seemingly dispassionate eyes were busy taking in everything around him, that his familiar scowl was more smug than cynical, and that his seemingly moody exterior hid a humour that was both razor-sharp and extremely intelligent.

"Have you found him yet?" he asked of Remus, who promptly looked up from what he was doing and nodded.

"I have," he replied. "He's in our dormitory."

Peter frowned in confusion and diverted his attentions away from the savage bunny. "I never saw him go up there."

"He was probably wearing the Cloak. Should we go up?" said Remus.

"No, leave him," said Sirius, shaking his head. "He probably just wants to spend some time by himself."

"In that case," said Remus. "I think a trip to the kitchens would be most profitable, yes?"

"Definitely," Sirius agreed, and with a flick of his wand, the psychotic rabbit was transformed back into a mouse, much to the confusion of everyone else in the common room. "We can get some food for Prongs, too. Coming, Peter?"

"Would I ever pass up a trip to the kitchens?" Peter replied jovially, scrambling up from the floor to stand beside his friends. Before they left the common room, Remus pointed his wand at the parchment.

"Mischief managed," he said, and rolled it into a scroll.

These young men made up three quarters of a group of boys who were known around the school as a gaggle of ardent pranksters. They were skilled at their art, and had knowledge of every secret passageway, password and hiding place in Hogwarts. Being, as a group, intelligent, resourceful and quick witted, they alone had managed to achieve feats that most fully grown wizards couldn't dream up, such as their creation of a map of the school that showed, not only all of the secret passageways leading in and out, but the whereabouts of every person, be it student or teacher, in the building and grounds. They had also become Animagi – illegally - in their fifth year, something unheard of for underage wizards, but they had managed it with alarming ease. This information, along with the existence of their map, and an Invisibility Cloak that belonged to their fourth member, was kept a secret from the student body, and even the teachers didn't know about them. They often used strange nicknames when they spoke to one another, and many a person had tries to guess what they signified, but no one ever had.

Remus, being a werewolf, was Moony. Peter was called Wormtail because his Animagus form was that of a rat. Sirius, being faithful and impulsive, was a large, black dog, thus, he was nicknamed Padfoot.

The fourth Marauder was currently in the boys' dormitory, sitting on the window ledge beside his bed, and staring out at the star-speckled sky.

His Animagus form was that of a stag, and thus, his nickname was Prongs, and he did indeed possess all the makings of an undeniably capable leader. A popular, bright and charming young man, a talented Quidditch player, and Head Boy to boot, James Potter seemed to live a charmed life. His ancestry consisted of the purest of purebloods, rich and revered within the wizarding community. His father, Charlus Potter, was head of the Auror department at the Ministry of Magic and his mother, Dorea, was Chief Healer in the Creature-Induced Injuries department in St. Mungo's hospital. He had been born into greatness and was expected to achieve greatness, and there was no doubt in either his mind or the minds of his parents that he could do so with ease.

James was one of the top students in his year, never achieving less than an 'Outstanding' in any subject, and having an particularly exceptional aptitude for Transfiguration. He was handsome, too, albeit not as glaringly handsome as his best friend Sirius, but he held his own in the affections of Hogwarts many young ladies. He was tall and lean, with rather attractive hazel eyes framed by wire rimmed glasses, and a head of thick, sooty black hair that refused to lie flat, instead choosing to stand out in all manner of directions. James had large, slightly calloused hands, long limbs, and a mouth that most definitely hinted at a rather sardonic sense of humour, but only when he smiled.

At that precise moment in time, James Potter was allowing his mind to wander over the events of the past week. Exams had ended a few days beforehand; he was positive that he had done very well, and tomorrow he would be leaving Hogwarts - the school in which he had spent seven years of his life - forever. His future was entirely planned. He would begin his Auror training at the end of the summer, qualify three years later and settle down in London, where, he supposed, he would go about the process of finding a wife.

To an outsider, his life would be considered enviable. In truth, James Potter was rather unhappy.

He couldn't place the source of his unhappiness, which he found rather odd. Certainly, his life was going exactly the way he and his family had decided it would. He had many warm friends, excellent career prospects, a nice home, a loving family, his health, and complete financial security. He had no significant problems or worries, no real enemies, and he was about to spend the summer staying with his friends in Brighton, which was sure to be enjoyable. He knew that he should be perfectly contented, but yet, he was not. There was a strange, heavy feeling that he couldn't shake off, and it seemed to be growing with each passing day.

He looked down at his hand, where he held a letter that he had received from the family owl earlier. He and his friends were departing to the Lupin manor in Brighton the very next day, and at the beginning of August the family would hold their annual banquet for all of the wizarding families in Britain. His parents would, as usual, be attending, which meant that they would be staying at the manor with James for a week. Aside from when the banquet was held, James, Remus, Sirius and Peter usually had the manor to themselves, as both of Remus's parents were wont to travel around. He couldn't help scowling in distaste upon sighting one particular part of the letter.

_The Patil family will be back from Edinburgh, I have been told, and will be bringing their daughter Elvira with them. Is it true that she was Head Girl this year? Her father is widely known in social circles as commanding a rather vast fortune, and I have heard that Elvira has taken quite a fancy to my only son. In any case, she has come out now, and is surely looking for a husband!_

James scrunched the letter into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. He loved his mother dearly, but she had an obsession with finding James a wife; a rich, empty-headed, pure-blooded wife.

Unlike some higher ups in the wizarding community, James and his family were very supportive of Muggle-borns and Muggles and his father, especially, was a fierce campaigner against hate crimes directed towards them. James' mother, also, worked and socialized with many Muggle-borns, considered a Muggle-born witch her very best friend in the world, and strongly believed that they were just as competent and powerful as purebloods. What James and his father found strange, therefore, was that the idea of her son marrying a Muggle-born filled her with dread.

Dorea would never answer James when he questioned her about this, which led him to believe that in spite of her sweet, caring nature, she must have been very shallow. He suspected that she worried about her social standing and thought that if James were to form an attachment to somebody of a different blood-status to his own, the family's esteem would fall in the eyes of other influential families. James could barely comprehend why; his family were known supporters of Dumbledore and of Muggle-borns, and they had never suffered socially thus far. In fact, the greater portion of wizarding society were usually looking to the Potters for acceptance.

He sighed, loudly. Either way, the matter was not important to him now. He wasn't even thinking about marriage yet, certainly not a marriage with Elvira Patil, who was nothing more than a simpering, whiny creature with an irritating giggle and a false, arrogant manner. Furthermore, the old custom of wizarding parents choosing their child's spouse was long dead and not likely to be revived. He would decide who he would marry when he was good and ready, and it would be because he loved her, not because it was socially acceptable.

Although really, he thought, if his mother had ever seen Elvira Patil at one of the common room parties that were occasionally thrown by the students, she would not have thought that she was particularly socially acceptable, either.

His thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the arrival of his friends, who barged into the dormitory talking nineteen to dozen, carrying food and sweets and bottles of mulled mead. Upon seeing him, Sirius jumped agilely onto the windowsill beside his best friend, and threw a chocolate frog in his direction.

"What were you doing up here for the past hour on your own?"

James tore off the wrapper with his teeth, bit the head off the frog, and proceeded to talk with his mouth full. "Thinking."

"About what?'

"About when we leave here tomorrow," he said thickly, through a mouthful of chocolate. "What have you been doing?"

"Reading our home correspondences," said Remus wryly, pulling a letter from his pocket and unfolding it. "On the subject of leaving, I got a letter from mother today. Apparently, we have three balls to go to this summer. Isn't everyone delighted?"

"Muggle or wizarding?" Sirius questioned, with a mischievous glint in his eyes. The Lupins were a half-blood family; John Lupin was a wizard, and Margaret Lupin was a Muggle-born who happened to adore both cultures, therefore both wizarding and Muggle social events were generally attended. Although the Marauders were sworn by Remus' kindly but terrifying mother not to use magic around the unsuspecting guests, Sirius, who hated balls, would usually pull some kind of prank to make the evening a bit more enjoyable and always managed to palm it off on James or Peter, usually Peter, for James had been known to have more than a hand in most of those schemes.

"Well, let me see," Remus began, tracing the letter with his finger as he perused it again. "There's the Longbottom ball."

"Ah, Frank Longbottom!" said Peter merrily, as he chewed on a mouthful of Bertie Bott's beans. "I haven't seen him since last year. Is he still engaged to Alice Prewett? Aren't they meant to be marrying at Christmas?"

"Your interest in gossip alarms me, Wormtail," said Sirius.

"Then there are our new neighbours, the Davies family," Remus continued, smiling slightly at the letter. "They of course, are purebloods, and, well…"

Sirius grinned, Peter looked confused, and James laughed quietly.

"Chamberly," said Sirius, quirking his eyebrows in a stupid manner. "Just as I'd hoped."

"Bravo, Padfoot, your powers of Legilimency are astounding, considering that Chamberly has a ball _every_ summer," said James dryly, boldly taking one of Sirius' Cauldron Cakes from under his nose.

"Mother says that Chamberly will be announcing his engagement this year," Remus remarked offhandedly. "To some girl from Cheshire, how odd."

"Prongs." Sirius held his palm out under James' nose. "You owe me five Galleons."

"Why?" said James, frowning.

"As I recall, you bet me five galleons that no girl would ever agree to marry that prattling git."

"If your mother heard you use that language, she'd wash your mouth out with soap," said Peter.

"My mother wouldn't need an excuse to wash my mouth out with soap," Sirius pointed out, grinning. "She'd welcome the opportunity to do it for free."

"I'll save my galleons for when Chamberly confirms that for himself. No, actually, I'll save them for when the _girl_ confirms it for us," James amended, pulling the wrapper off another chocolate frog. "Chamberly's an inflated boaster and a liar to boot, you can't believe a word that comes out of his mouth."

Sirius and Peter mumbled their concurrence, Remus continued to read his letter in silence, and momentary quiet fell upon the four of them; a quiet that was punctuated at times by the sound of rustling wrappers, and Peter's rather noisy chewing. Presently, however, it was broken by James who, upon looking over his shoulder and seeing his mother's scrunched up letter lying on his bed, turned to his three comrades and voiced something that had been on his mind for a while.

"Would you marry a Muggle?"

The expressions on the faces of each of his friends were indicative of the fact that this was a completely uncharacteristic thing for him to say. Sirius, however, was the first to recover, and laughed at James, throwing some jellybeans down his throat.

"Thinking of that already, are you, Prongs? Do your primal urges need satiating?"

Remus and Peter laughed, and James gave Sirius a good natured punch to the shoulder.

"No!" he replied. "… well, I mean to say -"

Sirius smirked at his friend's reddening face. "I will never marry, Muggle or not. I liken marriage to being shacked to a cage by your ankle for the rest of your sad, miserable life."

"So, you'd rather be promiscuous then?" James countered.

"If that's the sacrifice I have to make," Sirius replied, eyes gleaming.

James rolled his eyes; Sirius was a bad person to talk to about these kinds of things. "What say you, Moony?"

"I am not getting married either, for different reasons, of course," Remus replied, looking glum.

"Yes, so you say." Remus was an awful idiot where his Lycanthropy was concerned at the best of times. "But, if you _were_ to marry, would you marry a Muggle?"

"In what situation?" Remus asked, with a shrug.

"Well, I don't know, really." James also shrugged, and scratched the back of his head. "Let's just pretend that two women want to marry you and one of them is not magical. Would you marry her or would you marry the witch?"

"I suppose if I loved her, I would. I would marry whoever I loved, most and whether they were magical or not would surely not matter," said Remus sensibly, and then gave James a curious look. "Why does the subject hold your interest?"

"Truthfully, I don't know," James answered. "I was thinking about my mother when it popped into my thoughts."

Sirius shook his head, and gave James a disgusted look. "You were thinking about your _mother _when marriage entered your head? Odd, Prongs, odd even for you."

"I am sincerely worried for the girl who does end up married to James," Peter joked.

"If she has something to live for before she marries him, she won't have after," Sirius dug his elbow into James' stomach.

"It is nice to know my friends think so highly of me," said James. "You're all just jealous because you're unwanted and unloved, and I'm universally acknowledged as the one with all the charm."

"Keep your delusions, my friend," said Sirius happily, patting James on the back. "We'll find you a nice, demented Muggle girl to marry you at Chamberly's ball."

"I don't want-" James began, but he was interrupted by Remus, who was looking suddenly solemn.

"On the subject of Chamberly, Sirius," he said seriously, the voice of one who had long suffered the wrath of his mother as a result of his friend's thoughtless actions. "No pranks this year. Last year Mrs Havisham's daughter almost lost an eye because of you."

"It was the daft woman's own fault," Sirius argued stubbornly. "Let's not go back to that conversation; I never want to think of that sodding girl again."

"I'm not contemplating as to whose fault it was, I just don't want any trouble," said Remus fairly. "And neither does mother."

"Must you always spoil our fun?" Sirius questioned light-heartedly, and pouted like a child.

"Yes," said Remus stiffly. "I must."

"Can't we just skip the ball altogether?" Peter whined. "I hate balls, especially the Muggle ones. Your mother makes us wear those ridiculous suits, Remus."

"Alas Peter, we can't," Sirius replied. "We have to find Chamberly's poor fiancée and warn her before it's too late. Although," he added, as if the thought just occurred to him. "If she's demented enough to marry Chamberly, perhaps she's demented enough to run away with Prongs."

"You can shove your five galleons," said James.

The other three boys all laughed, as the night wore on they continued their banter, and the conversation gradually turned to their thoughts on leaving Hogwarts. They were all going to miss the school very much. It had been their home for seven years, the place where they had grown up and learned about their world and discovered themselves. It had been the basis for their entire friendship, and to these four young men friendship was the most important thing in the world. Tomorrow, they would be leaving it forever, to go out into the world and make the best of themselves, not only as wizards, but as men.

James took a long look around the walls of his familiar dormitory before he went to bed, and wondered if perhaps his leaving was the cause of his unhappiness.

He lay awake for hours that night.

And in a manor in Cheshire, a girl Lily Evans climbed wearily into bed after a long, difficult evening, and took her time sleeping, too.


	4. Ice Cream

**Ice Cream**

It was often said of the Evans family that the youngest and, inconsequentially, prettiest daughter must have been destined for another family, but got mislaid on the way there, the reason being that she did not physically resemble her mother, her father, her sister, or any member of her extended family that was still living.

Her mother, Catherine Evans, daughter of the Mr and Mrs Edgar Spencer, was a short, blonde, blue eyed woman who was considerably stouter now than when she had first married her husband. Despite her heft, she still managed to move with a grace and dignity that she had been practising tirelessly since the age of nine. In fact, it caused her considerable discontent to see that her two daughters seemed to have acquired that same graceful manner without having to put much effort into it. Catherine was a social butterfly, always in attendance at the most fashionable parties, balls and banquets, and the events that she hosted were known to be some of the best in the county. She knew everybody, knew of everybody's business, and loved nothing more than to brag about her own family's successes. Lily, in her opinion, was to be her latest and greatest achievement.

Charles Evans, unlike his wife, was very tall; also blue eyed, with grey hair, a stern mouth and an affable disposition. He was an unusually quiet gentleman, although when in the company of those he liked he was sometimes wont to say odd things, as he had a certain fondness for foolishness. He was also completely devoted to the hospital he part-owned in London, as he had once been a doctor, but had given up his practice in favour of business. He didn't care for social events, but attended them good naturedly, as he was sensible enough to know that he could get the peace he wanted by staying present in the every growing Evans social circle. He may have held a different opinion to his wife on Lily's romantic future, but if he did, he kept it quiet. As far as Lily was concerned, he openly worshipped his 'red headed flower', as he liked to call her, and spoiled her quite shamelessly. Lily had never been able to thank him enough for being the one who decided that she should be allowed a wand and textbooks when she was eleven. In her opinion, he had thrown her a lifeline.

* * *

The Evans family arrived in Brighton, a quaint, picturesque seaside town in East Sussex, on the 10th of July, which, coincidentally, was three days after the youngest Evans daughter had officially come out in society. Her coming out feast had been hastily arranged by her mother, who was more worried about their trip to the Chamberly home than her daughter's first foray into womanhood. Lily allowed herself to laugh silently at this, as the only reason her mother had accepted this invitation at all was, in fact, because of Lily's coming out.

Most girls near Lily's age looked forward to the day when they could do their hair up and lengthen their skirts, but Lily detested the idea. Unlike most girls, Lily's mother had made her wear her hair up for years before she came out. As her mother had explained, when a young lady does her hair up, it is a sign that she is ready to marry, and subsequently, turn over her virginity. Lily did not feel near ready to do either, especially not with Mr Chamberly, whom she found to be horrendously boring, hopelessly predictable, and far too old at thirty-four. She knew, from accidentally overhearing her mother's rather loud boasting, that Chamberly thought her 'captivating' and 'angelic', and had silently screamed with indignation upon learning as much. She wished that he would hate her, despise the sight of her, and desire a different wife, but it seemed that luck was really not on her side at all.

Her thoughts dissolved into nothingness as she stepped across the threshold of the Chamberly manor, which was overly large and painfully grandiose, just like all of the other houses, and was led into the parlour by a harassed looking maid. The house was, as she expected, uninspired and predictable in décor, moderately comfortable, and smelled mildly of cigar smoke, a smell that Lily detested more than any other. She briefly imagined kissing a man who had just smoked a cigar every day, and she felt like retching all over the plush, ruby red carpet. There was no way that she could see herself as lady of this house. This house, befitted with mounted pheasants and partridges, stuffed trout, and paintings of horses and formidable men, completely devoid of colour, laughter or character, did not welcome her and she had no desire to be welcomed. The house she had dreamed of had been a cottage beside the sea, full of flowers, music and friends, a house where she could do as she pleased, even dance around like an idiot with her hair down, and not a one would chastise her.

That house, she reminded herself, existed only in her dreams, and dreams had no place in life when you were an Evans girl. She might as well try to force herself to like the place. Perhaps Chamberly would like her so much that he would allow her to make some changes in the house, after they were married.

"Charles, my friend!" he was saying, shaking Lily's father's hand with gusto. "It's always a pleasure."

"You seem well, Edward, and you have met my wife and daughter, of course."

"Mrs Evans!" cried Chamberly, bearing down on Catherine in delight. "How lovely it is to see you again! I trust you found your journey comfortable?"

"Yes indeed, quite comfortable. I must say, Brighton is very charming."

"I am compelled to agree, I have always loved it so. One could say that it is almost as charming as this handsome young lady," he continued to gush, bowing deeply and taking Lily's hand again. She dearly wanted to laugh in his face. "Miss Lily, I am delighted to see you."

"Thank you ever so much for inviting me, Mr Chamberly," she said politely. She had her wand stashed away in her silk stockings and she dearly wished that she could whip it out and cover his face in putrid boils, just for her own amusement. "I'm quite excited about the prospect of exploring this beautiful place; I have never been to Brighton before."

"Well, explore away, my dear," he offered kindly. "I must offer my sincerest apologies, however. You see, I received a call today from Mr Shrewsbury, in Hertfordshire. I believe you have made his acquaintance before, Charles?"

Lily's father nodded.

"He is having some problems with the Davenport case, and to my dismay I must travel to Hertfordshire tomorrow to assist him. I must also spend the rest of today going over the particulars of the case with my partner. Therefore, I will not be available until Friday." Here he shot Lily's mother an apologetic glance and hurriedly continued. "I do hope you will forgive my rudeness, and you have my word that from Friday I will be free for the rest of your stay. In the meantime, I do hope you will make yourselves comfortable. My cousin and your daughter and grandson are already here, and my staff will cater to your needs, although I have noticed that you have brought some of your own."

Lily smiled to herself. In a fit of blind panic before they left, her mother had decided to bring two dressers for Lily, lest she try to manage the task herself and somehow make a mess of it. She seemed to be terrified that Lily could make some mistake which would lead to the discontinuing of Edward Chamberly's affection towards her. Therefore, Lily's personal maid and best friend in the world, Siobhan, had been sent to Brighton with them, which was really the only thing that could have possibly made Lily happy about this visit.

"Don't worry about that at all, Mr Chamberly," said Catherine, pretending, Lily could see, that this news didn't irritate her to the core. "When is this ball you are to be holding?"

"On Saturday evening, my lady, although," he swiftly added, as Catherine's eyebrows shot up into her hair and her eyes widened in evident alarm. "There will be a house party in three weeks, during which time I will hold another ball."

Her mother smiled. Obviously there would not have been enough time for Lily to get to know Chamberly and agree to become his wife before Saturday, and the announcement of engagement would have to be made in public, at all costs. "That is perfect. Indeed, we shall make ourselves at home in the meantime, and I am eager to see my grandson."

"Ah, he is indeed a darling," Chamberly gushed smoothly. "And may I say, he looks very much like you."

Lily snorted with laughter, which she hastily turned into a maidenly sneeze. Dudley Dursley indeed resembled her mother, as they were both short, blonde, rotund and more than a little bad tempered. Her little nephew suffered from colic, which resulted in his almost daily wailing fits. It made her feel awfully bad for her sister, but it would be funny to see how Chamberly reacted to his unending crying.

Almost as if on cue, the sound of a baby's high-pitched screams filled the house.

"There's the little rascal now!" Chamberly exclaimed, his eye twitching slightly.

"Oh!" Lily's mother had of course been blessed with the ignorance of all grandparents, who loved their grandchildren so much that they barely noticed their irritating crying. "I must see my darling grandson, where would I be able to locate him?"

"Just follow the sound of his screeching!" her father remarked, to which her mother scowled.

"Pray, Mr Chamberly, where is my grandson?"

"In the East wing," he said genially.

"Well then." Catherine gathered her skirts and nodded at them all in a regal manner. "I shall leave my daughter to the care of you two gentlemen."

After she had left, Mr Evans wandered around the room, examining paintings and ornaments, and Chamberly began to talk to Lily, who answered him admirably, not a hint of her dislike showing in her voice. It was a hard task, to be sure. The cigar smell emanating from him made her want to be sick.

"I do hope that you are not angry with me, Miss Lily," he was saying, having apologized for the fifth time for not being able to stay for the rest of the week. "For I would have loved to stay and get to know you properly, and I would so hate to displease you."

She smiled sweetly, an evil little idea popping into her mind.

"That is quite all right, Mr Chamberly, although I must say," she began wistfully, lowering her head and peeping up at him with a saddened expression. "I was very much hoping that you would accompany me to the seaside. You see, I have never been before, and my girlish heart longs for it."

"I am ever so sorry, Miss Lily, but perhaps, when I return?"

Lily sighed resignedly; she had no intentions of going to the beach with Edward Chamberly.

"Well," she said, smiling again with a look of obvious discontent, fluttering her eyelashes. "If I must wait, I must."

Chamberly went a little bit red, and wrung his hands.

"I see no reason why you should wait for me to begin your explorations," he amended hurriedly. "Surely there is someone who could accompany you to the seaside. Your lady-in-waiting, perhaps?"

Lily beamed. How easy he had been to manipulate. "Why, Mr Chamberly, you are most clever. What a capital idea! May I, father?"

Her father turned from a painting he was currently looking at, and smiled indulgently at his favourite daughter. "When would you like to go?"

"As soon as you will spare me, I hope."

"If Miss Lily would like to go now, it would be most suitable. I was hoping to discuss the hospital matter with you this afternoon, sir. Mr Wallis feels that you could shed some light on the solution, considering the success you have had with your own hospital," said Mr Chamberly to Lily's father, who patted his daughter's head and gave her another smile.

"It is agreed then. Lily, run along. Siobhan will accompany you to the seaside and I shall stay here with Mr Chamberly and discuss many boring things."

"Oh, thank you father," she chirped, hugging her father tightly. "And you, Mr Chamberly, what good, kind men you both are!"

She turned to leave, but her father's voice stopped her.

"Dearest?"

"Yes?" she said, turning around.

"May I remind you not to tell your mother of your doings?" he said, with a wink.

She smiled, gave them both a charming little bow, and rushed from the room. As soon as she was out of earshot, she broke into a run, grinning madly.

"What a charming, beautiful girl," said Chamberly, smiling with evident satisfaction.

Her father merely nodded.

* * *

"Today, Siobhan," sang Lily blithely, as she twirled around on the golden sand and tossed her hair this way and that. "I am not Miss Lily Evans, but somebody different entirely."

Maybe, when she lived at Chamberly manor, she could bring Siobhan.

Siobhan Finnegan was an Irish girl of twenty two, Lily's maid and dresser. Although she had been born in Ireland, her accent was of Manchester, as her parents had emigrated there when she was a baby. She had been working for the Evans family from the age of thirteen, when Lily had been nine. Against all propriety, she and Lily had formed a close friendship, which was kept a secret, like so many other things, from her parents and sister. It was Siobhan to whom Lily told her troubles, it was Siobhan who would test Lily on her textbooks, and it was Siobhan who went out in secret once a month and bought Lily's Potions ingredients. It was Lily, and Lily alone, who knew Siobhan's secret. She was a Squib, a non-magical person from a wizarding family. It was because of her that Lily had any knowledge of the wizarding world at all. Siobhan would sit in her tiny bedroom with Lily and tell her everything she knew, which unfortunately was not much, considering the fact that she had severed ties with that world in order to save herself pain and support herself as much as she could. She saw her family as regularly as Lily's mother would allow, though, so she picked up whatever information she could.

"Who are you today?" she replied, settling down on the sand and opening the picnic basket. Siobhan was used to Lily's flights of imagination; they were rare and wonderful, and therefore the sensible girl pandered to them.

"I am merely an everyday person who is on a vacation with her dearest friend, where there are no parents to antagonize her or ugly middle-aged men to court her. I intend to fully enjoy and forget myself today. And let me do that, who do you think you are, my maid?" she added, reaching out for the blanket that Siobhan had just pulled out of the picnic basket, which she spread out onto the sand. She then began to take the many goodies out of the basket and lay them out whilst Siobhan organized the plates and cups.

When Siobhan and Lily were left alone, Lily would berate her if she even suggested doing her job and would insist that they act as equals. It was delightful in Siobhan's opinion, who had been warned to expect snobbery and ill treatment when she started working for the Evans family and instead got put in charge of Lily, who befriended her, treated her nicely, and slipped extra money into her wages whenever she could manage it. Lily herself did not see Siobhan as a servant of any kind; she would tell herself that Siobhan was merely a friend who just happened to live in their house.

"Mr Chamberly is quite the handsome devil, you know," she remarked in a deadpan voice, holding an empty teacup with her little finger in the air, which made Lily laugh.

"Indeed he is, if you find warthogs attractive," she responded, thinking with distaste of Chamberly's stocky frame. She un-wrapped some tasty looking sandwiches that had been placed in the basket by Chamberly's cook and left them out on one of the plates, where they joined two different kinds of cake, boiled eggs, pâté and potted cheese. "The man is positively grotesque."

"He's not _that_ bad looking, kitten," said Siobhan fairly, reaching immediately for some lemon pie.

"No," Lily sighed. "He is not. But hush! Chamberly does not exist today and the man I am going to marry is simply delicious."

"More so than lemon pie?" said Siobhan, pulling a strand of her long, blonde hair out of her mouth. "Incidentally, lemon pie is still delicious even if I _do_ swallow half of my own head in the process of eating it."

"Oh, heaps more," Lily sighed airily. "He's devastatingly handsome."

"I imagine, then, that this delicious man is not a middle-aged solicitor with dirty blonde hair and a potbelly?"

"Certainly not. He's tall and lean and merry and _young_, with beautiful dark hair."

"And fabulously wealthy, with a house fit to hold the finest of balls?" Siobhan inquired, already knowing the answer.

"Whether or not he is rich is of little importance to me," she replied. "However, he is intelligent and talented and a little bit contrary. He'd have to be, you know; life with a man who just floats on a placid sea and never wants to argue would be utterly boring."

Siobhan laughed at her through her mouthful of lemon pie. "Sounds too good to be true."

"Oh, no, he exists," Lily insisted. She tended to get optimistic like this when she was in a good mood, and away by herself with Siobhan. "He could be on this very beach right now, in fact."

"I shall keep my eyes peeled for him," promised Siobhan, her grey eyes fixed on something behind Lily's head. "Oh Lily, look, there's an ice cream stand over there."

Lily turned around to see that, indeed, there was a little ice cream stall situated some way down the beach. "I can't remember the last time I tasted ice cream; my mother does not like it, and does not like it most decidedly. Shall we get some?"

"We are getting some," said Siobhan firmly. "Stay here, darling, I will go and get it."

With that, Siobhan jumped up and scampered away before Lily could stop her, leaving her mistress to sit on the blanket alone, munching on sandwiches and sighing contentedly to herself.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, with only the smallest hint of light breeze which prevented the holidaymakers from becoming uncomfortably hot. It was the kind of weather Lily preferred, because being as pale and decidedly red-headed as she was, extreme heat made her ill. She glanced around at the other occupants of the beach. There were happy couples holding hands and picnicking, children making sandcastles, elderly people walking along the promenade, and far away from her at the shoreline, a group of boys throwing a large ball to one another.

Lily found herself concentrating on a little girl who was nearest her. The girl had red hair, like Lily's, but unlike Lily's hair, which was currently pinned up most uncomfortably - it was in two long plaits. She was evidently not of the same background as Lily either, judging by her accent, mannerisms and dress, and she was giggling with delight as her father poured a bucket of water over her feet, which were sitting in a freshly dug hole. The little boy beside her shouted for his father to do the same, and frantically began to dig a hole for himself.

The girl caught sight of Lily and waved, and her heart swelled with envy.

"I've got the ice creams," said Siobhan happily, cutting through her thoughts as plopped down beside her again and handed her an ice cream.

"Siobhan, you should have let me pay," she began to protest, but Siobhan ignored her.

"Shut up. Now, try that, and if you tell me you don't like it, I shall know you're lying."

Lily tried it, and indeed, it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted, cold and creamy and gorgeous. She murmured her delight when the first divine trickle slid down her throat.

"It's heavenly," she sighed, gazing at the ice cream as if it contained every secret to eternal happiness.

"Delicious," said Siobhan.

"Mmm," was all that Lily could say, as she attacked her ice cream in a manner that was most unladylike. The little girl with the plaits caught sight of Lily and Siobhan and jumped to her feet, making wet sand fly all over and hit her father in the face.

"Oh look, look!" she screamed, pointing at Lily and her ice cream. "Ice cream, can we have some?"

"Yes, can we have some ice cream?" her brother agreed, jumping up and down feverishly. The man with them mumbled embarrassedly about not having enough money and on a complete impulse, Lily sprang up and held out her hand, not caring whether they would think she was stark raving mad or not.

"If you would let me, sir, I was just going to buy myself another, and I would love to get one for each of your children."

The man looked confusedly at her. "Oh, I couldn't ask that of you."

But his children had already made their way over to Lily, led by the little girl, who grabbed hold of her outstretched hand eagerly.

"You didn't ask, I offered," said Lily as sweetly as she could. "And it wouldn't be any trouble; I was just thinking that your children looked so nice and I'd very much like to get to know them, and I think that a day like this calls for an ice cream, don't you?"

"Oh, please?" the little girl begged her father, making puppy-dog eyes. "Please, please, please, Papa?"

After a bit more pleading on the girl's part, and some silent, but adorable, staring on the little boy's, their father consented, so Lily and the two children set off on the short journey to the ice cream stall, with Lily telling Siobhan most severely to sit still and not try to help her again. Siobhan did not argue, and enjoyed the rest of her own cone in peace.

The girl tugged at Lily's hand as they walked, and her little brother tagged shyly alongside them.

"What's your name?" she asked Lily, beaming up at her from where she danced along beside her on the sand.

"Why, it's Lily," said Lily happily. The little girl made a little sound of awe.

"That's pretty," she said. "We have lilies in our garden."

"Do you?"

"Oh yes, my mother really loves flowers so we have ever so many. We have lilies and roses and apple blossoms and petunias and -"

"My sister is named Petunia," Lily interrupted her, without thinking.

"Is she?" the girl asked; her freckled nose scrunched as she surveyed the ice cream stand greedily. "I don't like petunias as much, they're so dull. Lilies are nice, because there are so many different kinds. I like the white ones best."

"Calla lilies?"

The little girl nodded eagerly.

"I have not asked you what your name is," said Lily, liking this girl more and more with each passing second. "How very rude of me."

"I'm Emma," the little girl replied. "And this is my little brother Paul. He's very shy, though, don't expect him to talk to you."

The little boy walking alongside them waved quickly to acknowledge himself, and then blushed.

"They are very nice names," said Lily. "Do you live here in Brighton?"

"Yes! My father says that we are the luckiest family in the world because we live beside the seaside."

Lily nodded and shot a little smile at Paul, privately agreeing.

"Do you live here?" the inquisitive Emma asked.

"No," said Lily thoughtfully. "But I soon will, I think."

"Oh, you really should. You're so nice, I could talk to you every day, and we could make sandcastles and you could buy me ice cream," Emma replied cheekily. "Can you make sandcastles?"

"Why, no I can't."

"Oh, Paul will teach you to make a sandcastle. He makes the best ones." Beside them, little Paul blushed even redder. "You really should live here. Will you?"

Lily found she couldn't answer. She didn't know how to tell this vibrant child that even if she did live here, she would probably not have the chance to see her again. She somehow couldn't imagine Mr Chamberly permitting her to leave the house in order to build sandcastles with underprivileged little girls. Instead she chose to point out the ice cream stand.

"Shall I get the biggest ice creams possible?"

"Yes, yes!" the two children shouted simultaneously.

Emma let go of her hand and ran to the ice cream stand, so excited that she almost knocked over one of the boys from the shorefront and didn't even notice. Shooting an apologetic smile at the rather handsome boy, Lily, giggling madly, and Paul, who was still blushing, followed her at a run. They found her pointing at the inviting looking picture on the ice cream stand and demanding that the owner make her one bigger.

The owner, a plump, jolly looking old man with a nose so sunburned that all the skin had peeled off, shot Lily a questioning glance as she reached them. She panted, holding on to her side and tried to recover her breath.

"Four of your biggest, oh, pardon me," she finished, as the boy who had almost been knocked over had reached the stand at the same time, and had simultaneously opened his mouth to order.

"We want four really big ice creams!" Emma cried.

The boy raised his eyebrows.

"She's a little bit overexcited," Lily told him by way of an explanation.

He laughed pleasantly, and nodded towards Emma, with a smile. "Not unlike her sister? You seem a tad out of breath."

"Oh, this girl is not my sister."

The boy nodded politely and started rummaging in his pockets for money. They lapsed into silence for a few moments, all watching Emma dance in glee as the ice cream man made her a cone.

Lily suddenly felt rather lonely.

"Are you sad?" Paul asked her abruptly, pulling at her skirt.

Lily looked down at his little sunburned face in surprise. "Pardon?"

"You look... sad," he continued, evidently embarrassed by his boldness, and looked down at his feet.

"Oh," she replied lamely, shocked that this tiny little child had been able to read her so clearly. "Oh, well, no. I am having a lovely time."

"I'm sorry if I made you upset with me, I didn't mean to," he continued, clearly thinking he had harshly offended her. "I won't ask you ever again, are you mad?"

"No, no!" Lily laughed and shook her head. "Of course I'm not mad!"

He still looked apprehensive. "Are you still going to get me a big ice cream?"

"Yes, of course I am!" she assured him with a smile, and noticed that the young man was still watching her out of the corner of his eye. God only knew what he must have been thinking of her.

"Remus, what can I do for you?" the ice cream man asked the boy, once he had handed the children two ice creams each and Lily began to search for money. "The usual I presume?"

"Of course, and I'll pay for her four, too."

"Oh no, you mustn't!" said Lily immediately, but he didn't listen to her. He paid the man for Lily's ice creams and grinned at her, whilst taking four delicious looking cones for himself.

"That is a 'welcome to Brighton' present," said the boy now addressable as Remus, and shook his head as she tried to hand him some money. "Please don't. I don't mind at all."

"Thank you so much," she said, a little bit touched by such an unnecessarily friendly gesture. "What leads you to assume that I'm new, may I ask? I might not need welcoming."

The boy named Remus nodded at her, and smiled rather shrewdly. "I have a way of telling. It was nice meeting you all. Goodbye, Henry," he finished, and, after giving Lily a short bow, he turned away to walk back to the shoreline.

"Oi, Remus!" the ice cream man who was apparently named Henry bellowed after him.

"Yes?" he replied, turning on the spot, two ice cream cones balanced perilously in each hand.

"You tell Potter that he's to get his lazy bottom over here!" Henry continued. "He still owes me for that broken window!"

"I'll tell him, Henry," Remus called over his shoulder, beginning his journey across the sand once more. "Don't worry!"

Henry chuckled, and smiled at Lily.

"He's a good fellow, that one. What'll your name be?"

* * *

"Hark who returns!' Sirius shouted at the top of his lungs, and dropped the Quaffle he had been holding. James, who had been about to jump and catch it, turned to greet Remus, who was walking quite carefully across the sand, for fear he would drop the four precariously held ice creams.

"We had almost given you up for lost, you know," he remarked, shielding his eyes from the sun as he regarded his friend.

"Sorry," said Remus, meandering through the sand and around their discarded shoes. "I was attacked by a little girl."

"Peter attacked you?" Sirius questioned, taking his ice cream (James noted that Sirius made sure to grab the biggest one) from Remus's outstretched hand, which was gradually becoming stickier and stickier due to the melting treat.

"Oh, very funny, I _must_ say," remarked Peter grumpily, taking his own ice cream from Remus. "Must I forever be known as a girl just because of one silly incident in third year?"

"Ah, the good old days," said James, with the air of one who had reached their elderly years.

"If you hadn't cried so _very_ loudly, Wormtail -"

"I know, I know," Peter answered hastily. "Can we please change the subject now?"

"Did my eyes deceive me, Remus my friend?" James began chidingly, as they all sat down to form a circle around their shoes and eat their ice creams. "I believe I saw you conversing with a young _lady_."

"Really?" Sirius gasped, sounding scandalized. He and James had rehearsed this beforehand.

"Yes, really," James whispered loudly. "I saw it with my own two eyes."

"Four eyes, spectacle face," Remus pointed out serenely.

"Who is she?" Peter questioned.

"I don't know," Remus shrugged, not bothered in the least by Sirius and James and their childish behaviour. "Most likely an aristocrat, she was dressed for it, although she was with two rather ragged looking children. She seemed very pleasant."

"Is she pretty?" Sirius carried on. "We couldn't make her out properly from here."

"I suppose she was rather pretty, yes," said Remus, again nonchalantly. "But there are lots of pretty girls here today."

"Pretty, you say?" said James suavely, stroking his chin. "Perhaps I should go over and introduce myself."

"Don't," said Remus. "She seems to be having a lovely day, don't ruin it for her."

Sirius and Peter snorted. James made a face at them.

"You want her for yourself, eh?" he immediately concluded, and checked Remus' face for signs of blushing. There weren't any. "Could it be that our favourite werewolf thinking of satiating his _own_ primal urges now, hmm?"

"Hush!" Remus hissed. This, unlike James' suggestion that he might be interested in the girl from the ice cream stand, _did_ make him turn red. "People might hear you!"

"Sorry mate, I forgot. Remember the rule, Padfoot?" said James, to which Sirius nodded gravely. "When we are in a public area where we could be in the company of non-magical folk, there is no magical activity, or discussion of, permitted."

"Would I do such a thing?"

"Of course not. Would I?"

"Never Prongs, never."

James grinned, then scrambled to his feet and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Has anybody seen a Snitch!"

"James!" Remus cried, all in a panic, and grabbed his shorts in his haste to make James sit down. James merely kicked him away and staggered backwards several feet.

"We were trying to play Quidditch, you see!" he continued, still shouting. People in the immediate vicinity were starting to stare at him as if he were crazy. They probably all thought he was a raging drunkard.

"James, you idiot!" Remus tried again. "Sit down!"

"But it's rather difficult without broomsticks, so we-"

Remus was now hissing for James to be quiet and flapping his hands rather absurdly; he looked like an angry bird.

"Moony, old chum, you really shouldn't draw attention to yourself like that," Sirius remarked offhandedly, while James ceased his racket, and grinned charmingly at everyone he locked eyes with.

"Really Moony, someone might have gotten suspicious," he said, and sat back down next to the boys. "I really did lose my Snitch, though."

"Well you shouldn't have brought it to the beach, fool," said Peter, rolling his eyes. James mimicked his eye-rolling and turned once more to Remus, who was now sitting with his arms folded, scowling at them all.

"So, the girl, how pretty was she?" James persisted.

"James must really be eager to find a Muggle to marry," said Sirius, smirking up a storm. "Is that it, Prongs, hoping for Moony to turn matchmaker?"

"Padfoot." James gave his best friend a look. "We are _supposed_ to be teasing Remus about his love for that mysterious ice cream girl - you can't just switch sides at will."

"I think you'll find that I just did."

That comment earned Sirius a handful of sand that James sent flying into his face.

"You menace, you've befouled my ice cream!" Sirius exclaimed.

"You deserved it."

* * *

"I reckon that it's time we were leaving, Lily," said Siobhan, pointing out to the horizon, where the sun was beginning to sink. "The sun's going down, you could catch cold if we stay out much longer.

Lily groaned, torn between getting up and burying herself in the sand and refusing to move. The latter sounded more inviting, but she did not fancy her mother's reaction upon being told by Siobhan that her daughter had decided to spend the night by herself out on the beach. Sighing, she stood up slowly, dusted herself off ,and began packing away the soiled plates.

Her afternoon had passed most enjoyably. She and Siobhan had spent the day building sandcastles with Emma, Paul and their father (his name, it transpired, was Leonard) and they had eventually decided to have a competition. Lily and Paul, who had grown rather attached to her, had soon beat Emma, Siobhan and Leonard by building a magnificent castle, complete with a realistic looking moat, realistic because Paul had insisted upon running back and forward to the shore with two buckets countless times to refill it. Eventually taking pity on the child, Lily had muttered a charm when their backs were turned, ensuring that the moat stayed full. She had gotten a scolding from Siobhan, but didn't care much, because she was having too much fun to feel guilty. Emma and her family, however, had left about an hour ago, as had the ice cream man, the surrounding holidaymakers, and the boys from the shore, although Lily had not seen them leave.

"We have had a nice day, haven't we?" said Siobhan gently.

Lily nodded. "Yes, splendid."

"It's not a long walk back to the manor, and we can pick some flowers on the way back," her friend added, as they packed away the leftovers, in an attempt to cheer her up. Lily did not answer and they cleaned up the rest of the picnic in silence, until all was packed away and they were both standing; Siobhan holding the basket.

"Are you coming, dear?"

Lily shrugged her shoulders and gestured to Siobhan to walk.

"I am. I will just be a moment. I want to enjoy this view alone for a minute," she sighed. "It's really very silly, but I almost feel as if I will never see it again."

Siobhan leaned forwards and pulled Lily into a gentle, one-armed hug.

"I love you, darling."

"Love you too," Lily said, in a small voice. Siobhan kissed her forehead, pulled away and began a slow walk to the steps that would take her back up to the promenade.

Today had been more perfect than Lily could have hoped for. Everything, from the weather to the people, seemed to jump right out of a dream and in front of her rapt eyes. The cheerful informality of Emma and Paul, their father and his funny stories, the very generous Remus, the merry chat she had had with Henry the ice cream man (who had promised her a free ice cream the next time she came just because she was 'pretty as a picture') and even Siobhan's sarcastic comments about some of the people on the beach – it was all so different to what she was used to, but it seemed so natural for her to be part of it. She _belonged_ here, with these people, in a place like this, not in some stiff, upper class hellhole with some old, smarmy, snivelling, pandering-

"OUCH!"

She was jolted back into reality by a sharp pain in her forehead, as something had flown out of nowhere and hit her right between the eyes. She saw a rush of colour, and felt something soft and feathery fluttering in her face, before she instinctively reached up to hold her palm to her forehead, and jumped as her fingers came into contact with something strange and solid. Her immediate and stupid thought was that it was a bump on her head, a theory that was discarded almost as soon as she closed her hand around it.

She brought her hand to eye level, opened her fingers, and let out a silent scream of surprise.

It was a Snitch.

**A/N: LE GASP! IT'S A SNITCH! WHO COULD IT POSSIBLY BELONG TO? (Lol it's totally James)**


	5. A Case of Mistaken Identity

**A Case of Mistaken Identity**

True to his word, Edward Chamberly returned to his Brighton manor on Friday morning, bringing with him a barrage of gifts for his potential fiancée. Lily was awoken by an apologetic Siobhan and brought down to breakfast to be greeted with perfume, a necklace, the biggest bunch of lilies she had ever seen in her life and a white muslin dress.

"All for you, I was hoping that the lady would oblige me and wear this to the ball tomorrow?"

Lily merely smiled, and gave one of her gracious, well-practiced nods. "I would of course. It is a beautiful dress."

It caused her great pains to admit it, but it _was_ a beautiful dress, and very much to her taste. Delicately woven with a sky blue sash and bow, a full skirt, a fan to match the sash, and delicate little earrings to complete the outfit, it was without a doubt one of the finer dresses she had ever been in possession of. The perfume was sweet, although a tad overpowering, the necklace was blue topaz, presumably to match the dress, and the lilies were exquisite. Clearly, Chamberly had put a lot of effort into buying her these presents.

Her immediate feelings went from guilt - for not sharing his affection, to anger - for his trying to buy her affection with gifts, to a dismal satisfaction. These gifts, as wonderful as they were, were not the type of gifts that Lily had ever desired to receive from a suitor. She cared little for jewellery or fashion, perfume irritated her skin, and as for the flowers, her ideal would be intelligent enough not to buy her lilies just because Lily was her name.

But, she reminded herself, as she smoothed her hair down and stepped through the large oak doors into the ballroom on Saturday evening, it was just something she would have to make do with.

* * *

"James, dear, please just give me your wand," said Margaret Lupin wearily, holding out her hand.

It was the night of Chamberly's ball and the Marauders and Remus' parents were waiting outside the idiotic man's house house, having a little battle before the knocked on the door and were allowed inside. It was a yearly tradition; Margaret would try to take their wands, James and Sirius would refuse, Sirius would promise not to get into any more trouble and then they would both, inevitably, end up causing trouble.

"Afraid not, aunty Mag," said James calmly, much to Mr John Lupin's amusement. "Take Sirius' wand if you like, but Stephen stays with me."

"Stephen?" Mrs Lupin replied vaguely. "I thought it was Clifford?"

"James renamed his wand Stephen last year. I am not entirely sure why," Sirius explained, twirling his own wand in his fingers.

"I find that my wand responds better to me when I treat it as an equal," said James stoically, nodding at Margaret in a serious manner. "Clifford is an awful name; one would bully a Clifford. I prefer Stephen; it's manlier. Less easy to intimidate."

"James," said Peter with a mock-worried voice, "Does Stephen ever talk back to you?"

"Very well," said the long-suffering Mrs Lupin, and made a grab for James' wand, which he easily dodged. "Give Stephen to me."

James shook his head, and pocketed his wand to prevent further attempts at theft. "It's Sirius who should be giving you the wand, not I. Therefore, Stephen is staying with me. I'm not giving you my wand if Sirius is permitted to keep his."

"Oh, very well, then!" said Margaret exasperatedly. "But if you cause any more trouble, on your own head be it!"

Although she loved all four boys dearly, Margaret Lupin was apt to favour Sirius, which meant that she tended to blame his wrongdoings on James, something which Sirius found incredibly amusing and used to his advantage.

"Not a word about magic is to be mentioned whilst we are here, understood?"

"We will be as good as gold, mother," Remus replied. His father snorted disbelievingly.

"How many times, Remus, have I heard that?"

"Approximately seven hundred, but we never heed you," Peter supplied. His friends laughed.

Upon entering the main ballroom of the Chamberly manor, it did not take long before the little group was accosted by the host of the party himself; he was particularly fond of the Marauders and always sought them out whenever he was throwing a public event like this. It was something that James found dreadfully irritating, but he at least had the pleasure of making fun of him afterwards.

"John, my friend, how absolutely delightful it is to see you!" he cried, ever the charming host, as he shook Mr Lupin's hand and then turned to admire his wife. "And Mrs Lupin, you are looking as wonderful as ever, how have you both been?"

"Fantastic, Chamberly; I trust you remember my son and his friends?" John Lupin replied. The Chamberly family had been acquaintances of his wife's family, the Bennetts, long before he had married Margaret, this much James knew. John Lupin hated Chamberly almost as much as his son's friends did, and it was only for the family connection that he permitted his wife to drag him to these balls alone.

"Remus Lupin," said Chamberly, with the air of one who was greeting his very best friend after years apart, pumping his hand up and down. "I haven't seen you in the longest time. How _are_ you?"

"Very well sir, very well."

"And Sirius Black!" Chamberly turned to Sirius now, and Sirius allowed himself to be assaulted by Chamberly's overly-enthusiastic handshake. "Still being headhunted by eligible bachelorettes, eh?"

"Unfortunately," Sirius replied, looking effortlessly bored.

"Philip!"

"Peter," Peter mumbled.

"How are you?"

"Terrible, thank you." Sirius made no effort to hide his laughter at this remark.

"Good to hear, good to hear," Chamberly replied offhandedly, already turning to shake hands with the Marauder who was undoubtedly his favourite.

"James Potter," he said proudly, as if he was surveying a prime racehorse that was about to win him a million pounds before being carted off to slaughter so that Chamberly and his friends could enjoy it for dinner. "Simply splendid to see you!"

"Likewise," James replied cheerily, allowing Chamberly to pump his hand up and down.

"The last year has treated you kindly, I see," Chamberly added, no doubt referring to the fact that James, who had first met Edward when he was twelve years old and an impossibly short and skinny runt of a boy, had grown several inches since then and was now exceptionally tall.

"And you, Edward, and you," James replied, trying not to laugh at Chamberly's slightly receded hairline. He ran a hand through his own abundant hair and felt very smug.

For five more minutes, they were greeted by various guests whom they knew and were introduced to those who they didn't, until Remus' mother dragged her only son off to be introduced to Lady Elgerby's daughter Mavis, a girl who was, coincidentally enough, his age and just out in society, leaving the three remaining boys with Chamberly. Her son's Lycanthropy had not put her off her quest to find him a wife, it seemed.

"His mother is not going to rest until she gets that boy married off," Chamberly remarked.

"She will be trying for a long time, I fear, Remus is very fussy," said Sirius solemnly.

"Oh yes, very fussy," James agreed, nodding seriously.

"Unbelievably fussy," Peter agreed. "He hasn't yet found a woman to suit him."

"Well," Chamberly replied, undeterred, "The woman who marries that boy is a lucky one."

"Heh," said Sirius.

"Meh," said James.

"Achoo!" Peter sneezed.

Chamberly chucked merrily at the surrounding party guests, and looked around at the other three with raised eyebrows.

"Does anyone have any news for me? Any sweethearts yet?" he pressed on, in his usual Chamberly way. They were used to it. He was trying to bring the conversation to a topic about which he could boast, and this undoubtedly had something to do with the girl from Cheshire. James speculated idly on what type of girl would ever stoop so low as to adhere to a marriage with such a fool. It would be some homely, desperate, pathetic little thing, no doubt. He noticed a rather unattractive young blonde woman with a horsy face in the corner and wondered if that was her.

"Sadly not, I seem to have too many to choose from," said Sirius, stifling a yawn.

"Alas, I cannot seem find a woman to suit me," James answered, rather wickedly.

"And of course, most people even be bothered to remember my name," said Peter drolly. Chamberly seemed to overlook Peter so much that the boys found it funny whenever he made these kind of remarks around him, because Chamberly never noticed.

"You have not been looking in the right places," said Chamberly mysteriously, tapping his nose. "Come with me boys, and I'll tell you something worth knowing."

He led them into a small parlour off the main ballroom, whereupon a group of men were gathered talking about horse racing and hunting. Leading the way up to one of the tallest men in the room, Chamberly cleared his throat and extended his arm towards the stately looking gentleman.

"Mr Charles Evans, I would like you to meet some very upstanding young men."

The tall, formidable looking man turned to survey them, his blue eyes flitting from face to face, and James immediately felt as if he were looking right inside them and grasping each of their personalities in a single second. He had that kind of aura about him.

"And what are the names of these upstanding young men, Edward?" he said, in a low, calming sort of voice. James found that he liked him immediately, although he had absolutely no idea why.

Chamberly introduced the three Marauders one by one, starting with Peter and ending with a flourish on James, which was not unusual. He did this almost every time he introduced the Marauders to anybody, as if James were the prize jewel in his collection. James could not understand Chamberly's penchant for him at all, but he put up with it because it was wildly amusing to tease him behind his back. The older man seemed to think that all four Marauders considered him someone to be admired, so he spent most of his time boasting and bragging about places he had seen and things he had done, foolishly thinking that they must surely be in awe of him.

"It's nice to meet you, sir," he said to Mr Evans, holding out his hand for the man to shake.

Charles Evans did not move to shake his hand at first; he was still examining James as he had done with Sirius and Peter before him, but he must have found him presentable because merely moments later he willingly shook his hand and smiled broadly.

"You have a good, strong handshake, Potter. I like that in a lad."

"Charles and his wife are here for the summer with their daughter, Lily," Chamberly began, his face impassive but his voice betraying his smugness. "They have come all the way down here from Cheshire to stay with me for the rest of the summer."

"On that subject, where is my little girl?" Mr Evans inquired of no one in particular.

"I haven't seen her yet; most likely she is still in her room, getting prepared. I bought her the most beautiful dress, you know," he added to the boys, with the smuggest of smug grins. "Shall I send Sarah to check on her?"

"No matter, Siobhan can be left alone. Lily will be down when she is ready," said Mr Evans. "She is probably with her mother somewhere."

"Very well then, we shall wait for them. Can I offer anyone a cigar?"

James groaned inwardly. If he had a Sickle for every cigar he had been offered by Edward Chamberly, he would be fully able to buy St. Mungo's fifty times over. He made it very clear that he detested the vile things but Chamberly would offer one on every meeting without fail. It was one of his irritating little traits that made James want to transfigure him into a beetle and stamp on him until he was no more than a speck of dirt on the annoyingly tight shoe that Remus's mother had insisted upon him wearing.

"I'd rather die," Peter deadpanned.

Sirius just about managed to grunt uninterestedly.

"James?" Chamberly wheedled, holding one out to him.

"No thank you, Edward," he replied. He grinned at Sirius, who had evidently decided not to bother stifling his yawns at this point.

"Charles, how about you?" offered Edwards, not remotely put out by the mass refusal. "A cigar?"

"No thank you Edward, You know, I have no liking for them at all."

"Well, all the more for me, I say! Philip, my lad!" Chamberly exclaimed, having spied Peter making his way over to the food in an attempt to escape. "Starting on the grub already, eh? Getting a bit rotund now, aren't we?"

'_That is a case of the pot calling the cauldron black if I've ever heard one_,' thought James, looking at Chamberly's stomach, which was notably bigger than it had been last year. He was quite sure he caught Mr Evans doing the same thing.

They chatted about uninteresting topics for a few moments before Mr Evans excused himself politely, saying that he needed to talk to Vernon, whom James recognized to be Chamberly's cousin. The second he had left, Chamberly dropped his polite and pleasant manner and grinned around at the three remaining listeners.

"That, boys, was my future father in law."

James nodded, Peter's eyes widened in surprise, and Sirius raised one eyebrow with mild interest.

"May I be the first to, eh, offer my congratulations, Edward?" said James, trying his very hardest to bite back a laugh. He felt like should have been offering the girl commiserations.

"We heard that you were engaged," said Peter, as if he couldn't really think of anything else to say.

"Oh, not yet, not yet," said Chamberly secretively. "But I will be. Give me a few of weeks, and I can guarantee you that myself and Lily Evans will be announcing our engagement at the house party."

"You seem very confident," Sirius remarked disbelievingly.

"I have every reason to be confident. Her mother and I have been planning it for months, her father consents, her brother-in-law is my cousin, and as for the girl herself, well, she's already eating out of my very hand!" he exclaimed, with much pomp and vigour.

"Well then, my congratulations were not misplaced," James finished lamely.

Chamberly grinned widely.

"Oh, but I haven't gotten to the best part, boys," he began, clapping a hand each on one of James' and one of Peter's shoulders and leading them towards the ballroom. "Wait until you see her! Such an attractive girl I have never seen before," he shook his head. "Just wait, wait until you see her, you'll be green with envy, green! I doubt that even young Mr Black here could attract a lady so becoming."

James exchanged sideways glances with Sirius, and he knew that both were thinking the same thing. Chamberly was all mouth and no trousers. This girl was probably the ugliest little wench imaginable, and he was making her out to be a beauty, just like he always did. Edward Chamberly could never resist exaggerating.

* * *

Fifteen minutes into this pitiable excuse for a ball, and Lily Evans was ready to climb the walls.

It had become apparent about fourteen minutes and fifty seconds ago that this was not really a ball, rather her mother's chance to pass Lily around for public viewing like a newly acquired vase. She had become suspicious when Mrs Evans had prevented her from going downstairs until ten minutes after the ball had begun and her suspicions had been proven correct once they eventually came to the ballroom. Her mother insisted upon bursting through the main ballroom doors and displaying her daughter with a grand flourish, ensuring that every head had turned to see them. She had then been dragged straight over to the many aristocratic associates of Chamberly and her parents, thus prompting many 'Oohs', 'Aahs' and the odd cry of 'Isn't she beautiful?' from particularly merry partygoers who had obviously already partaken in too much of the wine. Chamberly himself was nowhere to be seen, all the better for Lily, but most unusually it did not add to her enjoyment. In fact, she was running low on people to mentally murder and thus she was trying to find other ways to amuse herself. If only there was someone she could have a semi-decent conversation with, but everyone in the room seemed to be concerned with nothing but gossip.

She had managed to extract herself from her mother, feigning a need for some fresh air, and she was standing beside a wooden Grandfather clock. The crowd in front of her was large and her mother was on the other side of the room so she was hoping for a few moments in peace. She examined her nails idly and listened to bits of conversation going on around her, cringing inwardly at the mountainous praise that was being heaped on her host and husband-to-be.

She heard a nervous sounding voice waft over the crowd, becoming gradually louder as it came her way, that was familiar to her, and her ears pricked up.

"Yes, mother, I will return in just a minute. Yes, I promise. It was nice meeting you, Miss Mavis."

Lily cast her mind back over the previous few days to try and remember where she had heard such a pleasant voice that didn't bring to mind someone whom she wanted to smack across the face, but she needn't have bothered, because the owner of the voice collided with her about four seconds later. She felt a surge of irritation and turned to berate the mysterious voiced one for being so clumsy, but she stopped. It would not do to take her anger out on this completely innocent person, especially since she had been the one staring vacantly at her hands and not concentrating on her surroundings.

She was also too flabbergasted to speak.

"Why, what a surprise, how nice to meet you again," was the cordial greeting she received from the owner of the voice, whom she definitely now recognized.

She quickly regained her own voice, which had been momentarily lost, and exclaimed with glee, quite forgetting herself and her surroundings for the briefest moment.

"This _is_ a surprise, a lovely one at that. I can't quite believe that I'm seeing you here, Remus? Is it Remus? I am so terrible at remembering names, although I'm quite sure it is Remus, it's not often that I hear such a nice and interesting name, and-" she blushed; she was rambling, how awfully embarrassing.

Of all the people she had expected to see at this horrible ball, she was not expecting to see this particular boy, who was to her a wonderful part of the magic spell that day at the beach had woven over her. The only other reminder she had was the lost Snitch, which was at present locked in the bottom of her biggest trunk and struggling to find an escape route. She had wanted to keep it with her, but obviously, that wasn't possible. Seeing this boy made it all the more real to her, and her spirits lifted. Unfortunately, when Lily got excited, she tended to chatter like a ninny.

"I'm sorry," she said, taking a deep breath and curtseying. "Please forgive me for my rudeness, for it was most impolite of me to address you so informally. It is lovely to see you."

He smiled warmly and held out his hand for her to shake, which took her aback a little. She had never been asked to shake hands with a man before, it was quite unheard of. Remus seemed to remember this formality, for he withdrew his hand and bowed his head, reddening slightly.

"May I return the sentiment? And please, don't apologize, for my first name is all you know of me, as I recall. My name is indeed Remus," he smiled again, and Lily felt as if she had met a kindred spirit. "Remus Lupin."

"Remus Lupin!" she chirped. "What a lovely, unusual name! It sounds like something straight from a novel, or a play by Shakespeare, or..."

Remus Lupin raised his eyebrows confusedly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm being rude again, but it really is, in fact, you even look as if you belong in a work of Shakespeare. Has anybody ever told you that?" She was surprised at her own boldness and froze immediately. What was she jabbering on about? She sounded like an inebriated fool! He must think her mad.

"I can't say that anyone has, no, but I must confess myself rather pleased. Unless… not Romeo and Juliet, I hope?" he finished humorously. "I never really cared for Romeo."

A wave of relief washed over her. He didn't think she was crazy, he was actually engaging in conversation. "Of course not! Romeo and Juliet were far too, too…."

"Hopeless?"

"I was going to say foolish, but you're entirely correct as well."

"I agree, their characters were far too whimsical and irrational," he said, with a laugh, and glanced around before continuing. "Personally, I always enjoyed Hamlet more than any other. Perhaps you could fit me in there?"

"Hamlet?" Lily repeated slowly, contemplating the suggestion. He did not suit the character somehow. "Well now, let me see."

"I do not think that I would care to be Hamlet, of course. He had, as I recall, a rather large burden to shoulder. I rather prefer-"

"Horatio!" Lily finished triumphantly. He smiled.

"I must say, I can see Horatio in you, Remus Lupin," said Lily, her eyes dancing with mirth. Here was somebody with whom she could have an intelligent conversation, what luck.

"And in you," he pondered for a moment, tapping his chin with his fingers. "I cannot see Ophelia or Gertrude. I think you do not belong in Hamlet, but -" Here, he grinned. "Of course, you would make a wonderful Portia, but with red hair, of course."

Lily had been entirely right about Remus Lupin. He was indeed as personable and intelligent as he had first appeared.

"Portia," said she contentedly, placing a hand on her heart. "The Merchant of Venice is one of my favourites. You have truly made my day, Mr Lupin."

"'That reminds me," he replied, inclining his head. "I do not know your name yet."

"Oh, how silly of me." In her delight at meeting him again and her haste to talk about silly things, Lily had quite forgotten the regular formalities that one was meant to go through. "My name is Lily Evans."

"Well now," he said, taking her hand and shaking it in spite of how inappropriate it might have been. "It is very nice to meet you indeed, Miss Evans."

She laughed. "And you. Pray tell, why on earth are you at this ball?"

"I don't usually go to balls, only during summer. My three friends and I stay at my home every year and my mother insists upon bringing us with her. We live about twenty minutes away from this place, if one were to walk, on the other side of the hill. Perhaps you've seen it?"

Oh yes, I saw it on my way here!" Lily had indeed spied the charming looking house on the way to Chamberly's imposing place. She had hoped at first that he lived there, and had been quite upset when they had driven past it in the carriage. "I thought it to be quite splendid. I presume that the other ice creams were for your friends the other day, unless, of course, you have a rather large appetite?"

"They were for my friends, yes. Actually, I was just about to search for them. My mother dragged me away from them to meet a girl from London."

"Oh, I see," said Lily, suppressing a laugh. "Looking for a wife?"

"My mother is, although I cannot say the same for myself."

He went quite red, and Lily berated herself for asking such a probing question. She had a rather nasty habit, or so her mother told her, of always saying the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time. She cast her mind around for another question to ask him, but he beat her to it.

"So, why are you here in Brighton?"

"I am staying for the summer with my parents," said Lily immediately, glad to have found a change in subject. "We came here from Cheshire."

He furrowed his brow, and seemed to be confused by something. "Cheshire, did you say?"

She nodded. "Yes, Cheshire, have you ever been?"

"Why, no I can't say that I have." He was looking at her as if something confused him very greatly, and Lily wondered if he had mistaken her for something else, or if she had chocolate on her lip, or something equally strange. "I have heard it is very nice."

As suddenly as Remus' expression had changed, it clicked, and she knew exactly why he had looked so confused upon hearing where she came from. He knew. His parents knew. Even his friends probably knew. Her eventual marriage to Edward Chamberly was not a speculation, it was fact, and he had already told everyone of his acquaintance about it.

She felt a sick, swooping feeling somewhere in the region of her stomach.

"You don't happen to know Mr Chamberly personally, do you?" she questioned, suddenly curious as to his opinion on their host.

"I know him fairly well. I have done all my life," said Remus obligingly, and if he did indeed know that she was his supposed fiancée, he said not a word about it. "But since I started at boarding school seven years ago, I have not seen him so much. He is probably with my friends somewhere."

"Seven years?" Lily had not heard of a school that took students for seven years. "That's a long while; I did not know that higher education lasted so long."

"It usually does not, but my parents were keen to send me to the best school possible."

"Where did you go?"

"St. Andrews," he replied, looking distinctly nervy.

"Is that in Scotland?"

"Yes," he said. "It is. What is it you were saying about Edward Chamberly?"

His abrupt question threw her, and judging by his uncomfortable expression, Lily deduced that school was something he wasn't keen on discussing.

"Oh, yes," she replied softly, at a loss for words. "Mr Chamberly…"

There was a rather awkward silence between the two.

"Do you like him?" she suddenly asked, looking at Remus with a curious expression. She knew it was blunt of her, but she wasn't in the mood for caring. Remus did not look stumped by her question.

"I like him well enough, I suppose," he began, looking thoughtful. "He wouldn't exactly be-"

"Lily?" Lily winced at the sound of her mother's voice, which seemed as if it were coming from somewhere close by. "Lily? Where are you, my darling?"

"Is someone looking for you?" asked Remus, as Lily glanced around in fright. "Somebody who you perhaps don't wish to see?"

"Yes, my mother," Lily replied, crouching slightly and looking around. "Would you excuse me, I really need to..."

"Escape her?"

She laughed nervously. "Something along those lines, yes."

"Please, go that way. I'll ward her off for you, Miss Evans," he offered, with one of his genuine, friendly smiles.

"It was nice to meet you again, Mr Lupin."

"And I'm sure I will meet you again. Keep a wary eye out for my friends, won't you; they can be rather mischievous when it takes their fancy."

"Will do," she called absently, already beginning to weave her way through the milling crowd. She managed to dodge her sister, who also seemed to be looking for her, sprint out of her father's line of vision and eventually found herself facing what seemed to be a large curtained recess. Slipping behind it, she saw a pile of cushions sitting beside a grand piano right next to her and sank gratefully into them. Peace at last.

She had just managed to make herself comfortable when the sound of close-by voices made her jump. Peering around the piano, she saw the dark outlines of two men who were facing away from her, peeking out from behind the curtain at the other end of the recess. It seemed she was not the only one hiding at present, for judging by their low tones, they did not want to be heard.

She was torn. Being inquisitive by nature, she took a secret pleasure in eavesdropping, wrong as she knew it was. The idea of listening in on a secret conversation was embarrassingly inviting to her. On the other hand, if she was caught eavesdropping by these two strangers, she would definitely be in trouble. Her mother would be told, that was for sure, and she really wasn't in the mood to listen to another lecture. But then again, how would she escape? It was a miracle they hadn't seen her enter, and she didn't want to risk being caught.

She didn't have time to consider the matter any further, as one of the mysterious men made up her mind for her.

"Have you seen the Evans girl that Chamberly is supposed to be marrying?" The voice definitely belonged to a man; there was no doubt about that, although he sounded far younger than Chamberly or her father.

"She is an ugly little thing, I expect?" The second voice was also of a man, this time lower, slightly raspier, but still young. Lily's insides clenched as she waited for the first man's reply. They were clearly talking about her; there was no other Evans girl at the party.

"Naturally," the first man scoffed. "And to think Chamberly makes her out to be a beauty."

If Lily had particularly cared about what other people thought of her appearance, she would have been hurt, but she wasn't. She felt justified in being angry, however, for she was being talked about in a most unsavoury way by two people who had never even met her, and she found it despicable. It was not even a comfort to know that Chamberly had called her a beauty; she would have much preferred it if he had been the one to dislike her looks.

"Just like him really, isn't it?" said the second man.

"Chamberly is the most irritating person alive," said his friend tetchily.

"You don't need to tell me that, I know."

"Oh, I do. Believe me, I do. You are not the one whom the stupid man calls his favourite," the first man continued, seemingly irritated beyond belief. "That dubious honour had been bestowed upon me and me alone."

"Well, unless you plan upon doing something about it, you'll just have to live with it,' said the second man, with a definite hint of mischief in his voice, almost as if he were daring his companion to do something about it, which, all things considered, he probably was.

Why on earth did they hate Chamberly so much, she wondered? Lily despised him herself, but even she knew that her dislike was undeserved. He didn't seem bad enough to warrant hate. She had a reason (however strange and unwarranted it was) to dislike him, but these men were relevant strangers, at least to her. Or maybe they were not. Had Chamberly done something he wanted to keep quiet? Her curiosity increased and she strained her ears, noticing that nothing had been said for at least ten seconds.

"Are you suggesting something?" said the first voice, very slowly.

"Me? Suggesting something?" said the second man, who in Lily's opinion was trying and failing to sounding innocent. "Never."

"So, if you were to, not suggest something, what would you not suggest?"

"I am sure I don't know, what would you not suggest? We could swap non-suggestions."

There was another long silence, in which a slither of light peeked between the curtains. One of the men, the first one, Lily was sure, had pulled back the curtain again. In the dim light, she could make out something glinting on his face, probably glasses, and what seemed to be very, _very_ untidy hair.

"The girl," he said, his voice dripping with amusement.

His companion made a strange movement. "What girl?"

"Honestly Padfoot, do you listen at all?"

"No," replied the man who was seemingly named Padfoot. What an odd name.

"Chamberly's girl, you know who I'm talking about," the first man explained. "His supposed fiancée, this Lily Evans, or whoever she is."

Lily immediately tensed. If Chamberly had enemies and they were planning to avenge themselves upon her by hurting her in some way, she was going to go straight to her father and tell him.

"What about her?" said the man named Padfoot.

"I could seduce her," said his friend.

Lily wasn't sure what shocked her more, the man's suggestion or the sudden bark of laughter that came from Padfoot, shattering the quietness around them. Surely this man was not serious? She must have misheard him, she must have.

"You want to seduce that pitiful creature?" said Padfoot, who was still laughing.

"I don't _want_ to, Padfoot, have you seen her? I was just saying that I could. That would wipe the stupid little smile off Chamberly's face."

"Quite confident, aren't we?" Padfoot replied. "What exactly do you mean by 'seduce'?"

"The usual, Padfoot, the usual," he said, his voice full of its own importance. "I introduce myself, we dance, we chat, and I compliment her a little. You know how women get so stupid about all that nonsense."

There was a disbelieving snort from his friend.

"I call over on a few occasions, spend a bit of time with her, announce my undying devotion to her and, well," he paused, and Lily could distinctly hear a snigger. "She falls in love with me."

"You couldn't."

"Yes I could."

"No you couldn't."

"I could," he insisted defiantly. "I could do it in two weeks."

Lily heard no more after that, for she scrambled up from the floor and slipped back through the curtains, not caring if they turned and saw her. Anger bubbled up in her chest as she walked back to her mother. How dare they? How dare they, those two complete strangers, talk about her as if she were some object, a pathetic little girl, a mere pawn to be used in a game of revenge? It was bad enough to endure the treatment from her family, but to sit there and listen to an unknown man talk about her as if she were insignificant tore at her insides. She may have had to marry Chamberly and may have had to obey her mother's every whim, but Lily Evans was not going to stand for being bullied by a mere outsider. There might be nothing she could do to prevent her current situation from occurring, but she would be dammed if she let anybody else get one up on her.

At least, she reminded herself with grim satisfaction as she reached the refreshment table and located her mother, she had finally found someone upon whom to vent her temper. Now she just had to find him. And he would regret ever picking her to play with.

* * *

"What was that noise?" said Sirius, pricking up his ears like a dog when their conversation was interrupted by a sudden rustling.

"I don't know," James walked over to the grand piano and looked behind it. "There isn't anybody here; perhaps it was somebody outside the curtain."

"Probably Mrs Havisham's daughter again," Sirius sighed, stretching his hands above his head and yawning as James returned to his original spot. "She's always following me around at these events."

"So," said James, returning to their original topic of conversation. "Do you still doubt my ability to seduce Chamberly's beloved?"

Sirius snorted with laughter. "Generally, yes, but no matter how useless you are, you're a step up from that vile idiot. Can you imagine what Chamberly's face would look like if his wife-to-be fell in love with you?"

James elbowed him in the ribs. "I'll refrain from trying because I'm a decent sort, but still, if I wanted to, I could," he insisted stubbornly. As funny as it was to imagine the consequences of something like that, James would never play around with somebody's feelings.

Besides, even if he was inclined to go through with such a horrible plan, nothing on earth would make him want to talk to that horsy faced blonde girl who had just spent the last half hour talking to Chamberly from across the room, let alone seduce her.

"No Prongs," said Sirius, shaking his head. "_I_ could do it. You forget that women love me."

"Women love me, too!" James protested.

"Only the women with no taste," Sirius shot back good naturedly. "Which brings me back to my original point; she's with Chamberly. You'd definitely be able to do it.

"Do what?" said Remus, from the other side of the curtain.

"Moony!" James cried, pulling back the curtain to reveal his suspicious looking friend. "Come hear our ingenious plan!"

"What plan?"

"Well, listen to this," said Sirius, draping his arm around James' shoulders as the two of them gave Remus the same identical, troublesome grin. "Prongs here was thinking of seducing Chamberly's little sweetheart."

"Why?" Remus asked, and his voice was icy and apprehensive. He thought they were actually considering it. James had to hold back a laugh.

"I was bored," he said, enjoying the joke.

Remus's eyes narrowed and he looked from Sirius to James and back again. "You wouldn't."

"Why wouldn't he?" said Sirius.

"Yeah," James echoed him. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I met her earlier, and she is a very nice young woman. Don't look at me like that, Sirius," he added, seeing that Sirius was grinning at him in that smug way he did which meant that he was about to tease Remus for something that wasn't remotely true. "She doesn't deserve such treatment. Think of the trouble you could get her in, James, and I swear on Merlin himself that -"

"Moony, calm down!" James reassured him, holding out a placatory hand. "I'd never do something like that to anybody; I was joking! Haven't you heard of joking? Sirius and I do it an awful lot."

Remus did not look convinced by James' protestations of innocence, and stared stonily at them for a few moments before turning on his heel and stalking away from them both.

"Chamberly is looking for us all, so you'd better come now," he called over his shoulder. "He says he wants to show us something."

* * *

She knew from the second she locked eyes with him that she had found who she was looking for. Maybe it was instinct that told her, maybe because he seemed to suit the voice she had heard, or maybe it was just because he was the only person in the room with the unruly hair she had seen in the dim light of the recess, but she would have bet all of her magical ability that this was him. It was definitely him. And to prove her suspicions, he was openly staring at her.

He was tall, probably as tall as her father, she noted, with very broad shoulders and long limbs. His face was thin and very attractive, his skin lightly tanned and the wire rimmed glasses he wore seemed oddly to add to his attractiveness, rather than diminish it. The messy hair that she had recognized was jet black. All in all, she concluded, her newfound enemy was rather blessed in the looks department, albeit in a rather odd way that she could not for the life of her pinpoint. No wonder he had been so confident in his conviction that he could seduce her! In her opinion, he was easily the handsomest man she had seen this evening.

Her original plan upon leaving the recess had been to confront him and give him a telling off, but upon seeing him (and for reasons quite unbeknownst to her) a newer, better plan formed in her mind. She decided that she would introduce herself to him, she would dance with him and she would accept his compliments. She would allow him to call over as much as he liked, spend as much time with him as possible, and she would gladly listen to him declare his love for her. The only difference between his plan and hers was that it was he, and not she, who would be falling in love. She was going to ensure that when he made his proclamation, every single word of it was true.

_Then_ she was going to snub him mercilessly.

It was vicious, but she was too incensed to care. It was enough that she would be married off to Chamberly without being seduced by a cretin. No man would best Lily Evans if she could help it.

* * *

"Quite eye-catching, isn't she?" Chamberly remarked happily.

"She _is _pretty!" cried Peter, in a voice which betrayed his complete shock.

"Eh," said Sirius, who wasn't paying attention and had not a clue what Chamberly was pointing at.

"Well Potter, I told you she was a beauty, what do you think?"

James answered with an indistinguishable noise in his throat. He wasn't following in the direction of Chamberly's pointing finger. In fact, he didn't even know where Chamberly's finger was pointing. He already knew what Lily Evans looked like and he had no desire to see her again. This, however, was not the reason behind his lack of attention. He was paying attention, _rapt_ attention, except his attention had been caught by someone else.

She stood on the edge of a group of people, all of whom were talking animatedly about something or other, but she didn't seem to be paying attention, gazing blankly at a spot in front of her as if her entire heart and soul were absorbed in it. Every now and then she would nod and smile absently, but her companions didn't seem to notice her obvious disinterest, nor did she seem to care. She looked like she was lost in a completely different world.

The young girl was also exquisitely beautiful. Not beautiful in any classical sense. In fact, the ordinary observer would probably pronounce her moderately pretty. But then, James Potter was not an ordinary observer. He had met several girls in school who had generally been considered belles of their classes, and none of them had ever held his interest. Their beauty had been obvious and insolent and nothing out of the ordinary. This girl's beauty was anything but.

She was tall and slim, her skin was very pale and her top lip was bigger than her bottom one, giving her fact a childish, even insolent, kind of quality to. Her eyes were large and expressive and even from this distance, James could make out the colour; a deep, vivid emerald green. Her hair was red, a deep, dark red; and it was tightly bundled up atop her head. It had been her hair that had first caught his eye and it was the reason he had turned and looked at her in the first place. It was such a pity that hers wasn't loose and flowing. She was, simply put, the most attractive girl he had ever laid eyes on.

James could not recollect one moment in his short life where he had felt this suddenly and violently attracted to someone. He had simply turned around, found himself gazing at this stunning young woman, and without any warning his heart started hammering in his chest.

She lifted her eyes and looked at him, _directly_ at him, and he felt a sudden, violent urge to break something in two.

* * *

When Lily Evans wanted something done, she usually thought it best to do it herself, which was precisely what she did on this occasion. After waiting nearly an hour for someone to introduce her to the cretin from the curtain, as she had so fondly dubbed him in her own mind, she concluded that it would never happen unless she did it herself. Not caring in the least how inappropriate her actions were, and she knew they _were_ inappropriate, she strode across the ballroom floor and proceeded to make her presence known.

* * *

It was later on in the evening - James was talking with his three best friends, although admittedly, his mind was elsewhere, when he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned around, curious as to who was now seeking his attention, and found himself face to face with her.

To say he was surprised was an understatement. He had been trying to get close to her all evening, but every time he attempted it somebody would whisk either her or him away and he would lose sight of her altogether. Now she was standing right in front of him with an oddly challenging look in her eyes, almost as if she was mad at him, but she couldn't possibly have been. They didn't know one another at all.

"Can I help you?" he said, managing not to sound like he was nervous because the most beautiful woman on earth had just walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do. His mouth felt inexplicably dry all of a sudden

"I think you can," she said. She had an awfully pretty voice.

"How so?" he asked. She lifted her chin daintily and stared him down, paying no heed to the three boys behind him. Her attentions were focused entirely on him, and for a moment he wondered if she was a Legilimens, and could read from across the room that he was entirely taken with her.

"I want you to ask me to dance," she said simply.

She could not have dropped a bigger bombshell if she had announced her intention to murder him on the spot. Peter gasped, Remus' eyes widened in comical surprise and even Sirius was noticeably shaken. It simply wasn't done for a woman to be so forward. James however, did not falter.

"Certainly. Would you do me the honour of dancing with me?"

She said nothing, merely held up her hand and allowed him to lead her towards the ballroom floor. It was as simple as that.

* * *

"I thought James said that he was going to leave her alone?" said Remus, rubbing a spot between his eyebrows. "I wouldn't have thought he'd lie about something like this."

"Leave who alone?" asked Sirius confusedly, as his eyes were locked on the retreating backs of his best friend and the mysterious redhead who had just brazenly asked him to dance with her. "What are you talking about, Moony?"

"Lily Evans," Remus repeated patiently. "He told me earlier that he was going to stay away."

"He is going to leave her alone. Whatever gave you the idea that he wasn't?" said Sirius, taking his eyes away from the odd couple to give Remus a confused look.

"Well, he is, you know, dancing with her right now," Peter pointed out, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"But I thought that Lily Evans was the blonde girl…" began Sirius, but trailed off as comprehension began to dawn. He took one more look at his best friend and the girl he was dancing with, and a slow, smug smile spread across his handsome face.

"Well," he said amusedly, folding his arms across his chest and quirking an eyebrow. "This should be interesting."

**A/N: Ooh la?**


	6. The Cretin from the Curtain

**The Cretin from the Curtain**

Much later on in the evening, and many, many times after that moment, James Potter would curse his friends for not calling him back and telling him that the girl he had just asked for a dance was in fact the very Lily Evans that he had mistaken her sister for, but at that one particular moment in time he was blissfully unaware of the mischief he was causing. His friends, on the other hand, were not, that was for sure.

If James had ventured to glace behind him, he would have seen Sirius' face and known immediately that something was woefully amiss, but he never did.

"Guess," said Lily, looking up at him with fluttering eyelashes, a vision of innocence in blue and white. The raven-haired cretin with whom she was dancing raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.

"I don't think I'd be able, I'm terribly inept at that sort of thing; haven't got the patience for it."

"Surely you're just being modest, Mr Potter?" she asked him sweetly. Lily could not imagine that this young man was anywhere close to modest in the slightest, not if his comments from behind the curtain earlier were any indication. "I can't imagine that you are any better or any worse than any other person – it's not a game that requires much skill."

"It may take me a long time."

"Lucky for you, I'm a very patient girl."

He studied her for a moment. "Really, it wouldn't be wise of you to ask me to guess; you don't look like somebody who is in possession of a commonplace name."

"Was that a compliment, Mr Potter?"

"It might be," he said. "If you choose to take it as one."

This was the opportune moment to give a flirtatious answer, but something told her to remain a little more aloof. She had already surpassed herself by demanding that he dance with her, and it simply would not do to appear too eager.

"Are you going to guess my name or not, Mr Potter?" she instead chose to ask him, clicking her tongue impatiently.

"If I must," he said, and frowned slightly. He was, perhaps, wondering how to successfully guess her name, so as to seem impressive, without making it obvious that he already knew exactly who she was. Lily was not expecting him to err at this early stage of what was now to be their sparring, but that did not mean that she would not be watching him closely for any mistakes. "Georgina?"

Lily shook her head. The piece of music that had been playing came to an end and the small orchestra in the corner struck up a different, slower tune, but she barely noticed.

"Emily?"

"No."

"Elizabeth?"

"No." She shook her head. "Although, Elizabeth is my middle name."

"Ah, I see." He looked visibly heartened by this. "Lydia?"

Lily shook her head again. "No, but you're close."

"Close?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "Your name begins with an 'L', I presume?"

It was, she knew, not a coincidence that he had whittled the matter down so quickly, but she had to play the unsuspecting innocent and not question his knowledge, so she merely nodded and smiled rather tightly.

"Lenora?"

"Lenora? Heavens no!" she laughed.

"Laura?"

"No."

"Lucinda?"

She shook her head again, feeling a short stab of impatience. If Potter was going to continue this charade all night she would surely get irritated. "Do you concede defeat, Mr Potter?"

His name was James Potter, he had told her so minutes earlier. It seemed to suit him, although she couldn't quite place why, for James was a name that she had always admired and she most definitely detested this man with all she had in her. It was a good thing that she had overheard the conversation, because there certainly was something very pleasing about his manner and appearance and Lily knew her own tastes well enough to know that she otherwise could have found herself to be quite taken with him.

"I don't like to give up once I've started something."

"Neither do I, but time is fleeting and there are many female names beginning with L that one could list. If you admit defeat, I shall tell you my name and then we could move onto more interesting topics of conversation."

"As I recall, you said you had a lot of patience?"

"I lied," she said shortly. "It's common practice amongst people who have just met."

If she was surprising him with her bold statements, it did not register on his face. "Very well, I give up."

She smiled as enigmatically as possible and dipped her head, to appear modest and shy. "My name is Lily Evans, Mr Potter."

There was an odd moment in which his brow furrowed in what she could only assume to be surprise, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. He had certainly rehearsed his actions perfectly; his intelligence was admirable. "Lily Evans?"

"That is correct."

"I presume that your parents are Mr and Mrs Charles Evans, from Cheshire?" he continued.

"Yes." She faltered. She had not expected him to have such in depth knowledge. "Yes, they are. Have you spoken?"

"I had a brief conversation with your father earlier," he replied, shrugging. "I didn't know that you were his daughter, however. You don't really resemble him."

"Don't I?" she said, feigning confusion as she moved far closer to him than she had been, and looking up at him with innocent green eyes. "Perhaps you haven't examined my face properly. I'm sure you could find some likeness if you looked hard enough."

He seemed slightly taken aback, but obeyed her request and examined her seriously for several seconds, far too long. Lily found herself begin to redden beneath his intense gaze.

"I can't see the likeness," he admitted. "But then, perhaps it's your father who I haven't taken enough notice of."

"I doubt it, really," she sighed, lifting her nose. "I really don't resemble my father, and the red hair is from my mother's side of the family."

Potter, who had also begun to blush, blinked several times in his confusion, perhaps at being shamelessly told to examine her face when there really was no need for him to do so. "But is your mother not blonde?"

"Yes, she is. I take after my grandmother."

Her cunning companion opened his mouth to reply, but words seemed to fail him. Instead, he stared somewhat absently at her nose for a while, looking slightly lost in thought, and as confused as always. She left him to devising whatever plans he had before the silence absolutely started to bore her and she was forced to break it.

"Penny for your thoughts, Mr Potter?"

He immediately snapped out of whatever trance he had been in, opened and shut his mouth, and shook his head. "I don't think you'd care for my thoughts, Miss Evans."

"My name is Lily, Mr Potter." Yet another bold and inappropriate statement had fallen from her lips. "And I think it is safe to assume that if I don't mind barging up to you and demanding that you dance with me, I will not be irritated if you call me by my first name."

"I assumed that propriety wasn't something you advocated," he said, with a quiet, pleasant laugh.

She didn't answer in words, merely shook her head.

"I'll call you Lily if you call me James, Miss Evans, and not a moment before," he put to her, smiling genially. "It's entirely up to you."

"As I was about to say, Mr Potter, before I abruptly changed the subject," she carried on as if he had never spoken at all, feeling wicked. "You won't know whether or not I care for your thoughts until you voice them."

"I suppose I'll have to take that penny, won't I?"

"I'll owe it to you."

He laughed again; he had a very lovely laugh, and mock bowed to her mid dance. "Well, if I am to earn that penny, I'll tell you; I was just thinking to myself that you are undeniably the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. It's not something I wanted to tell you so early, but if you're not worried about being rude, then I can't say that I am, either."

Lily was utterly horrified to feel herself blushing at his words. She was used to the pretty little compliments that had been paid to her by her father, and Chamberly, and various other people who paid them in an attempt to be polite, but coming from Potter it sounded completely different to what she was accustomed to. Furthermore, the little pang in her chest that sprung up when she reminded herself that he wasn't sincere was worrying, almost as if she wanted him to be telling the truth, but she had no idea why. It was terribly embarrassing and made her angry, besides, but the physical manifestations of this could only serve to convince him that she was merely flustered and shy.

"That was rather brave of you," she said coyly, once she had recovered her wits. "For all you know, I could be married."

"You aren't married," he countered. Unlike her, he seemed perfectly at ease. "Even if you were, it wouldn't diminish your beauty at all."

"Beauty is worthless, and I am not a woman, only a little girl," she retorted, a tad too sharply.

"Worthless it might be, I can't argue with that," he said reasonably, nodding. "All the same, a mere boy like me cannot help but appreciate such a fine example."

"I'm a fine example of worthlessness, you say?"

"You twist my words, Miss Evans."

"Ah, but you have figured me out, Mr Potter. I persist in digging for compliments."

"Well, here's another," he offered. "My first impression of you was that you're as far from worthlessness as a person can be."

"First impressions are devious, you know."

"Hopefully I'll be allowed a second."

"Oh, you most definitely shall be," she said.

They had danced to two songs by this time and Lily could see her mother throwing her suspicious glances. It was probably time to move on to another dance partner before she had to endure her many probing questions. Edward Chamberly was nowhere to be seen, which could only be a good thing, for she did not imagine that either he or her parents would find her plan even remotely amusing. On top of that, she had no idea what else to say to the cretin. She would have liked to converse a bit more but the key to everything was to move slowly. If she left him now, it would surely be inevitable that he would want to make the next move.

"If you don't mind, Mr Potter," she said, before he could reply to her. "I can see that my mother is searching for me. It was interesting to meet you."

"And you," he said, looking down at her with an expression that made her face redden, to her embarrassment. "Goodbye, Miss Evans."

"Are you sure I can't convince you to begin an internship at my practice, Remus?"

"I'm afraid that at the moment I'm undecided, Edward," Remus lied. He was definitely lying, Lily could tell. Why on earth anyone would willingly work for Edward Chamberly and spend a minute more in his presence than they absolutely needed to was beyond her. "But it is definitely something that I would consider."

"When you do make your decision," cut in another man whom Lily vaguely recognized from other dinner parties, but with whom she had never before spoken. "Remember that there is always a job for you at Chamberly and son."

"Thank you, Mr Harris. I will keep that in mind."

Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Chamberly happened to turn around and catch sight of her lurking behind a woefully obese man who had chosen that time to dart towards the buffet.

"Why, Miss Lily!" Jovial as always, Chamberly's bellowing greetings were really starting to grate on her. "Do come and join me!"

It took all of Lily's self-control not to groan loudly. Evidently, she could only eavesdrop upon one conversation per night without being noticed. That said, she had not been making much effort to hide this time; there were no curtained recesses or pianos to crouch behind. She had rather hoped to avoid Chamberly all night, but her curiosity had grown upon seeing him talk to the amiable Remus Lupin. She put on her best smile, ignored the anxious feeling that had been flip-flopping in her stomach ever since she had danced with James Potter, and came towards the three men.

"Mr Chamberly," she said, and her glowing cheeks seemed only to be a symptom of merriment, not shattered nerves and high excitement. "What a lovely ball this is."

"Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Miss Lily Evans to you, she is more beautiful than my descriptions can give credit to, is she not?" Here he shot Lily a charming smile. "Miss Evans, this is my one of my partners, Mr Benjamin Harris; I believe you have already met? And this fine young fellow is Mr Remus Lupin, a friend of the family."

"Miss Evans," said Mr Harris, taking her hand and giving her a quaint little bow. Unlike her brash host, Mr Harris' manners and hospitality did not seem to be forced. He was a thin, debonair man with a comically curly moustache and a flair for theatrics. Lily had spoken with him for the first time only the other day and had been very amused by his flamboyant nature. "Why, you _are_ the belle of the ball! I shall never understand why you do not have a string of love-struck admirers hanging from your skirts!"

"Thank you so much." Lily giggled earnestly at Mr Harris and his favourable comments, because he, at least, seemed to be entirely sincere, if a bit ridiculous. "And it is so nice to see you again, of course, Mr Lupin."

"You already know Remus?" said Chamberly.

"Oh, yes sir, she does," piped up Remus, with a kindly smiled in Lily's direction, his eyes twinkling. "She and I chatted briefly earlier on in the evening, about… Shakespeare, if I recall correctly?"

"Ah. Shakespeare," said Chamberly, looking stumped. Lily wondered if Chamberly had ever read Shakespeare in his life and was willing to wager quite a lot that the answer was no. "How very nice."

"Oh, it was just silly chit-chat," said Lily airily, lest Chamberly start to think she was more intelligent than the empty bubble he thought her to be and his head explode from confusion. "You know, I simply couldn't help but overhear some of your conversation as I came to find you, Mr Chamberly, and I must confess myself a little confused."

"Confused?" His brow furrowed. "Why is that, my dear?"

"Well," she said, for she had been curious about this since she had heard of Edward Chamberly. "Mr Harris is your partner in _law_, is this correct?"

"Yes," he said, throwing a suspicious glance at Mr Harris.

"And you have no others, do you not?"

"Why, no," he said faintly, regarding her with great confusion. "None at all."

"Yes, well you see, I was just wondering," she gave as pretty a smile as she could muster, hoping that she was portraying the vapid, stupidly curious little girl in the correct manner. "Why is your firm called Chamberly and son?"

"Oh," he said, looking inexplicably relieved. Perhaps he had been worried that Lily was going to start thinking; he seemed like the type who secretly believed that women should not be allowed to think – a cruel symptom of Lily's resentfulness towards him. "Well, it used to belong to my father, but he has since passed it to me."

"Well, you must be a very intelligent and competent solicitor, Mr Chamberly, to take the reins of a business at such a young age."

Chamberly, for some reason, looked distinctly uncomfortable. His eyes darted around the room for a moment and he did not speak until he had clapped his eyes on whatever he had been looking for.

"Yes, Miss Evans, indeed, but I'm afraid that I've just noticed something that I must see to. Harris," he addressed his partner with a significant look and Lily wondered if he considered her too stupid to realize that he was reacting in a most unorthodox way. "You'll take care of Miss Evans for a few minutes until I return, won't you?"

"Of course," said Mr Harris, twirling his moustache around his finger.

"I shall return in a mere moment, make sure you keep a wary eye on her, Harris – we wouldn't want Mr Lupin here getting ideas!" he said, with forced cheer, and gave Lily a wink before he disappeared into the milling crowd.

Lily turned to look at Mr Harris, slightly confused.

"Mr Chamberly seemed a little upset," she said, frowning as though concerned, even though she really could not have cared less, however, she was curious. "Did I mention something amiss?"

"It's nothing you were likely to know about, Miss Evans," said Mr Harris kindly. "Edward is a little sensitive about his father."

"Why is that?" she replied, somewhat impolitely.

"Well!" Mr Harris did not seem to mind her rudeness, and gave a rather loud chuckle. "You _are_ a curious cat, aren't you?"

"I'm thoroughly unashamed to admit that I am, sir."

"Well, I'm not really supposed to tell anyone," began Harris, leaning forward confidentially and twirling his moustache around his finger. "However, I must confess myself powerless when faced with such a beautiful girl, and I do so love to gossip." He winked at Remus. "Quite unmanly of me, don't you think?"

"We all have our guilty pleasures, Mr Harris," said Remus, smiling at Lily. "I must confess that I have some interest in gossip myself."

"Oh, very well then!" said Harris, as if Lily and Remus had twisted his arm to get this information. "Now, you mustn't repeat this to another soul, Miss Evans. You'll promise, won't you?"

She nodded, and crossed her heart. "I'll take it to the grave, Mr Harris."

"Well, the story is this," said Mr Harris, looking very much in his element as Lily and Remus paid rapt attention to his words. "Edward's father, also named Edward, was the founder and head of the law practice for thirty years and took his son on as an apprentice several years ago, and Edward is a fine solicitor, but his father was better. He was highly sought after and rarely lost a case at all, until…"

"Yes?" said Remus, after a while, as Mr Harris seemed to have trailed off with evident dramatic purpose and was waiting for one of them to urge him on.

"Well," he continued, looking very grave indeed. "Just last year, the elder Mr Chamberly took a turn for the worse, you could say."

"Did he… did die?" said Lily softly.

"No."

"What happened to him?"

"Dementia," said Harris simply. "Lost his mind. A dreadful pity too, for he _was_ such a fine man. He lives in a hospital in London now, your father's hospital, actually." He inclined his head towards Lily with a smile. "Edward gets horribly depressed about it. He was very fond of his father and they were very close, especially since his mother passed away."

"Oh dear," Lily said, feeling sudden pity for her previously loathed host. She couldn't imagine losing her kindly father to such a terrible ailment. "That's simply awful."

"You can understand why he does not wish for people to know this, of course. His father's reputation is very important to Edward and your father has done well to keep his true circumstances secret. Most of the people in London are under the impression that he is retired and living in Scotland. Edward even bought a house there to make his story appear - Oh, hush now, he's coming back."

Lily whipped around to see Chamberly making his way over, accompanied by her own father, and felt a sudden rush of guilt for having judged him so very harshly. She smiled at both men as they approached her.

"Mr Evans," Chamberly was saying, smiling around at everybody once he came to a stop in his original position. "I only just now remembered that I never introduced you to this young man! Remus, this is Charles Evans, Lily's father."

Lily's father gave his daughter a grin as he and Remus shook hands.

"It's a pleasure, sir," said Remus, smiling rather awkwardly.

"The pleasure is all mine, my lad," said Mr Evans, surveying him with the same critical eye that Lily knew he surveyed everyone with. "I presume that you came here with the three other young men?"

"If you are referring to Sirius, James and Peter," Remus replied, with a glint of what seemed to be amusement in his eyes. "Indeed, I did."

"On that note, where _is_ James?" said Chamberly, drawing himself to his full height to look around the room. Lily went bright pink in a matter of seconds and her face was burning hot. It was hard enough, trying not to think about James Potter, but she didn't think she would be able to keep a straight face if Mr Chamberly started nattering on about him. She noticed that Remus was looking at her strangely and remembered with a jolt that not only was he Potter's friend, but that that she had seen him with the idiot when she had introduced herself. She shot him a warning look.

"I think he's with Sirius and Peter," Remus responded, clearly confused. Chamberly shook his head.

"That he is not, Remus. I asked them just this minute." Chamberly pointed over to where the aforementioned Sirius and Peter were sitting. Lily took a good look. One of the boys, short and blonde, was perched gloomily on a plush settee beside an even gloomier, though very comely boy who was rudely ignoring the chatter of a young lady who was hovering next to him. The blonde boy looked oddly familiar to her, although Lily couldn't imagine why. She stole another glance at Remus.

"Sirius is the dark haired one, Peter is the blonde," he said, by way of explanation.

"Your friends are very nice young men, Mr Lupin," said Mr Harris, with a rather strange look in his eyes as he stared at Sirius Black. He adjusted his trousers hastily. "Oh yes, just spiffing."

Remus nodded. "I like to think so."

"I like the Pettigrew boy, for his own sake. The other two are really far too outgoing," said Harris, who was one of the most outgoing people Lily had ever met.

"Oh now, Harris, Pettigrew is a little mouse of a boy," argued Chamberly. "Potter and Black are far more interesting."

"I liked the Potter boy," said Mr Evans suddenly, and most decidedly. "Good strong handshake, and looks you in the eye when he's talking to you."

Lily blushed, if possible, even harder.

"Oh, Potter is quite a fantastic young fellow!" said Chamberly, wearing a triumphant look, as if the cretin's supposed brilliance was entirely down to him. "Which brings me back to my original question, where is he? I was hoping to introduce him to Miss Evans."

"You needn't introduce the boy to my daughter, Edward," said Lily's father, who seemed very amused by something or other. "She's already quite familiar with him."

Lily's insides froze solid, as four pairs of eyes turned to her face. Indeed, there were no suspicious looks being directed towards her, but to Lily, Chamberly's mildly confused, barely curious look was one that tried to see into the depth of her very soul. She averted her eyes to the ground and wished that it would swallow her up whole. Or that somebody else nearby would cause such a terrible scene that she and Potter would be forgotten about.

"Familiar?" said Harris.

"Do you know James from somewhere else?" asked Chamberly.

"It's nothing like that," put in Mr Evans helpfully. "I'm quite sure they only met today, but they were dancing together not twenty minutes ago."

"You were dancing with James Potter?" Chamberly did, for the first time, appear a little bit alarmed.

"Well, yes, and we spoke, briefly," Lily replied, trying to look and sound as if the subject was of no importance to her and managed to pull it off quite well. "He seemed pleasant."

"If I may be excused," said her father, with an odd smirk playing at his lips. "I need to speak to my eldest daughter concerning a certain matter."

"I'll talk to you later in the evening, Charles," said Chamberly.

"Yes, indeed," said Harris. "We can catch up later."

"It was nice to meet you, sir," said Remus.

"Lily, my dear," said Mr Evans, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"Goodbye, father."

She felt like screaming in frustration when her father walked away and left her - left her in the company of some very curious men. She had no idea why he had felt the need to announce her impropriety to the rest of the party and even less of an idea why he seemed to be so amused about it, but whatever it was, she wasn't about to ask him to explain himself.

Men, she silently concluded, were all completely useless.

Now, James thought, leaning his head against the cool window pane, was the time for him to forget about Lily Evans, but he feared that this was something easier said than done.

He glanced quickly behind him, just to make sure that no one had entered the empty lounge he was standing in, as he had realized all of a sudden that he had forgotten to close the door. Once he established that he wasn't being watched, he flicked his wand and waited until after the door had shut and the satisfactory click of the lock was heard before turning back to the window to continue his musings interrupted.

That girl was going to be Mrs Edward Chamberly. The thought of it made him laugh, and laugh humourlessly. This girl could not, should not, be engaged to that idiot, and would not if he could decide such things. He was convinced that he had been misdirected somehow. He prided himself on having fairly good intuition, and this girl was definitely something out of the ordinary; she and Chamberly would be the worst match imaginable. But had not Chamberly explicitly said that it was Lily Evans that he was betrothed to? James was sure that he had, and it stood to reason that she was also aware of this already. But then why would she come up and demand that he ask her to dance?

As he probed his thoughts further, he came to notice that there had been something seriously amiss about their conversation, although he couldn't put his finger on what it was. For the most part, she seemed strangely guarded and prim. At some points in the conversation, she had talked to him in a tone that was bordering on sharp and looked at him with eyes that betrayed her distaste, but on the other hand, she had willingly stood so close to him that only a small movement would have found his lips on hers and he couldn't forget the way she had answered him when he enquired about seeing her again. Her tone had implied... well, he had been sought after enough at Hogwarts to know that this girl was suggesting something more than tea and crumpets.

On top of that, he had talked to Remus a few minutes ago and Remus gave him an entirely different description of the girl. He was utterly confused.

He told himself not to flirt with the girl even before he had learned of her true identity, purely because it would have been dreadfully improper, and yet it seemed to slip out before he could catch himself. If Chamberly were to learn of James' behaviour, that was, if Lily Evans were to tell him, he would challenge James to a fight because that was the kind of stupid thing he did, and then James would be forced to hurt him. Not that the idea wasn't appealing, but the fact of the matter was, forming some kind of romantic attachment to this girl could only end in tears.

But she had _flirted_ with him. Not in an obvious way, like Elvira Patil would do, but still, she had most definitely flirted. How was he meant to keep his distance from a girl like that?

When James Potter saw something he liked, be it a racing broom or the best slice of cake, he had to have it, and once he set his mind on taking something, there was no stopping him. This was entirely new, however, this had never happened with a girl before, and Merlin, _did _he want her. This girl was promised to another, this much he knew. There were multiple warning signs flashing in his head, telling him that this was dangerous, and wrong, and undeniably stupid.

But there was one thought, one single, solitary thought; that won out against every argument he put forward in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to disregard it, and it would continue to win out until the day that it was made irrelevant. It was an argument that, he knew, would quash the resolution he was making even now to stay far away from the girl. The efforts he was promising himself to make were all in vain.

For just moments ago, before she had left him, he had taken a good look at her left hand. To be more precise, he had looked at her ring finger, and had found it to be completely bare.

She wasn't engaged yet.

He was about to do something really foolish.


	7. A Hangover of Sorts

**A Hangover of Sorts**

Lily awoke on the morning after the ball nursing a splitting headache and a mood like thunder. The early morning sun shone through the windows and right into her eyes, as she hadn't wanted to close the heavy velvet curtains in her bedroom the night before, and had forbidden Siobhan from doing so. They shut out the light completely and made the room look stuffier, and stuffy it already was. Everything in it seemed to be brown or dark green; even the lamp shades and wash basin in the corner were a murky, earthy colour. Her covers were also much too heavy and her nightclothes were stuck to her body with sweat. She would throw them off during the night, but then she would become too cold and have to pull them back up.

Lily was positive that it was her bedroom that made her so very grumpy every morning. Were she to have her own home, everything would be light and white and airy, but that was not possible, so among her list of things to resign her woeful soul to were sleepless nights and uncomfortable temperatures.

She rubbed her eyes, which were sore and itchy, groaned and swung her feet out of bed. Her head was absolutely throbbing as she went over to the basin to wash her face and hands and haphazardly fix her hair. She looked in the mirror and decided that she looked hideous, but she did not care because it was too early for anybody else to be awake. If it was time to get up, Siobhan would have already come in to waken her and Siobhan came in at seven. The clock beside her bed read six.

She wondered if she could take a sneaky look around the house while nobody was awake. Lily liked to walk about her own house when her family were sleeping; she would make up stories whilst she did so, pretending that she was on the hunt for a ghost or searching for hidden jewels. This house, being a lot bigger than her parent's house, was good in at least one way for presented more opportunities to snoop.

Without bothering to change out of her nightdress, she quietly opened her door and left the room.

She padded along the upstairs hallway, stopping to look at paintings and statues that she passed. Every person she saw in a painting was given a name and story, as was customary for Lily whenever she explored a new place. A kindly looking young woman holding a baby became Lady Ursula DeBraam, who liked to boil children up and eat them in order to preserve her youth, the beautiful young lady in the red dress was named Vivian LeVey who had poisoned each of her husbands and taken their money, and the man with the unusual black eyes and a wooden pipe became Henry Halloway, who could only speak in riddles lest he immediately choke to death. On and on she spun tales for the painted until she ventured downstairs. On her travels she passed the parlour and the drawing room, cut through the living room and arrived outside the study, the door of which was open.

She glanced inside.

There was another painting on the wall, a painting of two boys, one of whom she recognized straight away. It was Edward Chamberly, although he looked a lot younger and he was sitting beside another boy, one whom Lily did not know. The boy had dark hair, glasses, and a very cheeky grin. He looked somewhat like James Potter but not very much, and was almost, but not quite, as handsome as he was.

She frowned to herself and shut the door in a hurry. Her thoughts had been full of nothing but James Potter ever since the ball yesterday evening, she had even dreamed about him that night, and she had no desire to think about him now, not at six in the morning when her head hurt and she felt disgusting. Luckily for her, she had not seen him since their dance. The cretin had done a disappearing act and Edward Chamberly had not been given the chance to converse with him while Lily was present. However, she had been introduced to Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, the former whose voice she recognized as being that of Potter's ghastly comrade, Padfoot. Neither of them seemed to bother hiding their dislike for Chamberly and it was most amusing that Chamberly didn't seem to notice. They were both very nice to her and she liked Pettigrew instantly, he was a sweet and very funny young man, and she had the strangest feeling that she knew him from somewhere. She did not like Sirius Black, however, even though his blatant yawning and the faces he made behind Chamberly's back made her laugh. She was sure that she would have, had she not heard him behind the curtain, but then again, she could have really liked James Potter, too.

She moved on, wondering who on earth the young boy in the painting could have been, and she forgot to take much notice of her surroundings until she accidentally wandered into the breakfast room. Lily liked the breakfast room because it was the only room in the house that wasn't drab and dark. She decided to go in and sit down for a bit, so she did so, and immediately regretted her decision.

"Good morning, Miss Lily!"

Edward Chamberly was in the room, alone except for the mounds of paperwork that he was surrounded by, and holding a cup of tea. Even though she was clothed in her nightgown and looked a fright, he seemed absolutely overjoyed to see her.

"Oh, well, I didn't know that anyone would be…" She bit her lip and decided to hell with it. "Good morning, Mr Chamberly."

"Do come and sit down, and have some breakfast. I'm delighted to see you up and about so early," he implored her kindly, and hastily began clear the papers away from the gigantic table as they were taking up a great deal of it, even though they were not. Lily didn't move from her spot by the door.

"Perhaps I should go back upstairs first and change? I must look dreadfully improper."

"Nonsense," he said. "You look wonderful. Come and take a seat. I promise that should I ever recount this incident to your mother, I'll tell her that you were dressed to the nines."

Lily smiled. It was the first thing Chamberly had ever offered to do that she was actually grateful for. Her mother would have a fit if she knew that Lily had joined him for breakfast in her nightdress and with bare feet. "Are you sure? I don't wish to be rude."

"Please, Miss Lily, sit. You are a guest in my home and as my guest you are required and expected to do whatever you please. It is a mandatory order for everyone who stays here." He placed a hand on his heart, and indeed he did seem sincere. "My only wish is to see you contented."

Lily decided to join him, partly because she was absolutely starving and there was a delicious smell of bacon in the air, but mostly because she now had no excuse to escape the situation. He smiled approvingly at her. For a man over ten years her senior, she supposed that he wasn't as hideous as she had made him out to be. Certainly he had no major physical flaws, apart from the extra weight he was carrying around his middle, although she still did not find him remotely attractive as he simply wasn't her type. As for his personality, she still found him very dull and she _had_ noted yesterday that he did like to talk about himself quite a lot when he was near his peers, sometimes in a rather boastful manner, which was rather irritating. However, he was respectful and polite at all times, so there really shouldn't have been a reason to feel uncomfortable around him. He was a nice, generous, kind man.

All the same, she just _couldn't_ bring herself to like him.

"I am very contented here, sir, so please rest assured that all is well. I still can't thank you enough for the beautiful gifts you bestowed upon me yesterday."

"There is no need to thank me again," he said, as she lowered herself into a chair. "It was no trouble."

They lapsed into a somewhat awkward silence as she frantically cast her mind over every subject she could think of. What did a man like Chamberly like to talk about, apart from himself? Somehow Shakespeare didn't seem to be his idea of good conversation, nor did James Potter and his heinous plans to avenge himself upon him for no reasons. Her eyes fell again upon the stack of papers, and she supposed that she would have to stick to talking about Chamberly, after all.

"Surely you were not working this early in the morning, sir, and so soon after a party, too? You must wear yourself out."

"I am afraid that I must work, Miss Lily. It's a favour for your father."

"Really?"

"It's nothing serious, of course," he assured her. "One of your father's partners is considering selling his shares, so he and another trustee are coming here tonight for dinner to discuss it. Have you met Boris Davenport?" Upon Lily's nod, he continued. "His brother is a trustee of the children's hospital in London and he has decided to buy into that hospital instead. A family enterprise, you see. Naturally Boris would prefer to sell either to your father or Henry Hastings."

"Henry Hastings." Lily had to think for a moment in order for the name to register in her memory. "Forgive me if I'm incorrect, but is he not my father's other partner?"

"Yes, he is indeed, so I agreed to draw up the contracts for your father without charge. It's the least I can do for a friend."

"That is very kind of you. You're a very accommodating host."

"Thank you." He removed the paper stack, which was now neat and tidy, from the table and placed it on a chair beside him. "I must be boring you out of your mind with all of this business talk."

"Of course not, I did ask you, after all."

"Yes, but all the same, surely there is something you find more interesting than business? It is very hard to understand, all of this legal mumbo jumbo, and - Oh, dear me, I've forgotten! Would you like some breakfast?"

"Oh," Lily was taken aback when he stood up and strode towards the kitchen door. "Some porridge would be fine, I suppose. Thank you."

"I think we can do better than that." He grinned. "How about some bacon?"

"Oh, well if it isn't any trouble…"

"No trouble at all." He entered the kitchen and she heard his voice call back to her as he clattered around. "I always make a large stash in the morning and I keep it warm in the oven."

"Oh." This was surprising. "You do your cooking yourself?"

"Now I know what you're thinking," he said, with a wry grin, as he entered the breakfast room with a plate of toast and piles of bacon. "I have an excellent cook, but I find that nobody can ever make bacon to my taste and I don't like to wake Mrs Jerkins at this early hour."

"Thank you," she said graciously, accepting her breakfast with a smile. "Are you always up this early in the morning?"

"Every day but Sunday," he said, pouring her some tea. "I'm an early riser by nature."

"I'm afraid I can't say the same for myself," she said, after taking a sip of tea. "Siobhan often has to drag me from my bed in the morning. In fact, I can't imagine why I woke up so early today, especially after such a late night."

Lies, she told herself silently. She knew exactly why.

"That reminds me," he said, taking up his own mug. "Did you enjoy the ball last night?"

"Oh yes," she replied, after hastily swallowing a burning mouthful of tea and almost scalding her tongue. "It was quite lovely."

"You seemed to take to Remus quite well."

"Oh, Mr Lupin!" she sang enthusiastically. "Yes, he's such a lovely young man. You know, he reminds me of… well, no, never mind."

"No, please," Chamberly encouraged, even though he seemed a little suspicious, maybe even jealous. "Continue your thought."

"I couldn't possibly," said Lily evasively. "It is very silly."

"You? Silly? I doubt it."

"It really is silly, and I'd be embarrassed to tell you."

"Anything you say is music to my ears, Miss Evans. Please feel free to chatter about whatever you wish."

She hesitated before deciding that she might as well appease him. He had made her breakfast, after all.

"Well," she began, feeling stupid. "It's just that he reminds me so strongly of my phantom brother. You see, Petunia and I used to long for a brother when we were little, and when I met Remus, Mr Lupin, I mean to say, he just seemed to fit into that category. It was like how I always imagined a brother to be."

Chamberly beamed at her, visibly relieved. "That's not silly at all! Remus is a wonderful young man and this I know for a fact; I have known him for all of his life. His parents are charming people too."

"You have known him for all of his life?"

"Yes, ever since he was born. He has grown into a smashing chap. He is awfully intelligent, too, I'm always badgering him to become an intern at my practice, but he is not very ambitious, funnily enough," Chamberly shrugged. "Nice boy, terribly accident prone, though."

"Oh?"

"Didn't you notice? He's always covered in scratches and bruises and scars. He says he has a nasty habit of falling over and banging into things."

This sounded most alarming to Lily, who couldn't imagine that a person could be so accident prone that they were constantly covered in bruises and scars, especially not Remus, who seemed to elude steadiness in every sense of the word, but she supposed that Chamberly was exaggerating.

"Of course," he was saying. "I don't see Remus as much as I used to over these past few years, what with him disappearing off to boarding school."

"Oh yes, he attended St. Andrew's, did he not?" Maybe when she married Chamberly, they could just sit around and discuss Remus all of the time. He was certainly the most interesting thing she could think of to discuss with the man.

"Yes, he did. That's where he met his friends."

"You mean Mr Black and Mr Pettigrew?" she said, unwilling to bring Potter into the conversation until Chamberly had done so first.

"And James," he said. It must have been Lily's lucky day. "Of course."

"I had forgotten that Mr Potter was a friend of Mr Lupin's," Lily lied. "Do you know him well?"

"I've known him ever since he was a wee little chap of twelve and he came to visit Brighton with Remus. I was just into my first year of internship in my father's firm at the time. Mrs Lupin brought all four boys to the annual ball and my parents invited them to stay with us for a week. They just loved having children around the house, my parents."

"You get along with Mr Potter?" she enquired, thinking only of Potter's conversation with Sirius Black behind the curtain, during which he said very unflattering things about the man sitting opposite her. It didn't stand to reason that they would have a friendly relationship.

"Oh yes, famously." Apparently she was wrong. "He is a terribly funny boy, very cheeky, and clever like the rest of his friends. My mother used to call him a little monkey." He laughed a little.

"Your parents liked him?"

"Immensely," he said. "They liked all of them, but my mother always preferred James."

"Why would that be?"

"You know, I have no idea. I suppose it's just because he is such a likeable boy. He cared very much about my mother. In fact, he even took some time off school to come to her funeral when she passed away."

He tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"If you don't mind me asking, when did your mother pass away?" Lily enquired gently, thinking that it must have been hard for Chamberly to lose his parents. Just because she didn't like him, it didn't mean that she couldn't pity his loss.

"Two years ago. Did you find James to be amiable?" he replied, his cheerful manner not fooling her for a second. However, it was not her place to attempt to probe into his mother's death so she decided to humour him. Besides, she didn't mind discussing the cretin at all. Any information she could get would be useful at this stage.

"I suppose he was nice," she said slowly, wondering how best to approach this situation. Were Chamberly to report to Potter that Lily had disliked him, he may halt his plans, and she had her heart set on humiliating him.

"You didn't get along?" he said, his face falling. "What a pity, I was hoping to invite him to dinner tonight."

"Oh, no," Lily amended hurriedly. "We got along just fine. You were? Planning on asking him here, I mean?"

"Yes well, I was planning to invite all of them. I hope I may be able to persuade Remus to take me up on my job offer once my partners and your father's partners are here to discuss the hospital. But if you dislike James…"

"Oh no, as I said, not at all." Chamberly did not listen to her, obviously. "I just didn't get a chance to speak with him properly, the music was very loud," she nodded eagerly, but stopped, remembering that it may have been offensive to Chamberly to hear that she had been dancing with Potter last night, and he probably did not need reminding. "Do invite him, and the other boys, too. I would like to get to know them better, especially Mr Potter."

He raised a questioning eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"If Mr Potter is a good friend of yours, Mr Chamberly, then I wish for him to be a good friend of mine too."

"Well then, we'll just have to see to it that your wish is granted, shan't we?" He grinned and set down his tea. "I'll send someone up to Remus's house with an invitation."

"Would you mind if I went to the house?" She continued hurriedly upon seeing Chamberly raise his eyebrows yet again. "Mr Lupin told me of a book he has in his possession that he would like to let me borrow. It sounds utterly fascinating and I'd love to begin it today. Do you think I could? I could bring Siobhan with me to ensure that I don't get lost?"

"Well if you wish to go, then you must." Lily wondered if Chamberly was always this agreeable or if he was just pretending to be this way until after they were married and he had the power to make her do whatever he wanted. "Take the carriage, if you like."

"Actually, Mr Chamberly, I'd much prefer to walk. It looks to be a gorgeous day and I do love to ramble about."

"Ramble to your heart's content, my dear."

* * *

"Lily?"

"Yes?"

"I don't want to pry, or anything of the sort," said Siobhan, as she skipped over something in the grass that looked suspiciously like it had been recently deposited by a dog. "But we've been walking for ten minutes and you still haven't told me where we're going."

It was two in the afternoon, and Siobhan and a now fully dressed and very presentable Lily were walking up to Remus Lupin's house, also known as Meadowbrook Lodge, in order to invite Remus and his friends to dinner. Lily had taken great pleasure in confusing Siobhan before they left and telling her that she just fancied a stroll, but it had become clear soon into the journey that she was marching somewhere with purpose.

"We are going to call upon my friend, Remus Lupin."

"I haven't been told of a Remus Lupin before," said Siobhan in affront. She tossed her head. "You keep so many secrets from me."

"Hush, silly, I learned his name only last night," said Lily by way of explanation. "He's the boy from the beach who I told you about."

"_Ooooh_," said Siobhan, grey eyes glittering with glee. "The handsome one who bought our ice creams?"

"Plenty of young men are handsome, Siobhan, but there are very few young men who are both handsome _and_ interesting, and the latter is far more important."

"But," Siobhan argued. "If those young men weren't so handsome, we'd never bother to find out how interesting they are to begin with."

"Maybe _you_ wouldn't," said Lily chidingly. "You, perhaps, are more shallow than I."

"Of course," said Siobhan slyly. "I know _you_ care nothing for outward appearance, which is exactly why you have taken such pains with your own today, is it not?"

Lily stopped walking and stared at her friend with an open mouth. "I have done no such thing!"

Lily had done, and she knew that Siobhan knew it. She was wearing a light blue dress that looked nicer on her than any of her others, or so she was often told, she had painted her nails and made up her face and pinned her hair up in a style that was very becoming on her. She had even worn jewellery. All in all, she was very pleased with her appearance. It had surprised her mother, but as suspicious as it was that Lily would ever try to look nice without direction, Catherine had simply assumed that Lily was trying to impress Edward Chamberly and her father was not sensitive to the changes in women's apparel and appearance, much like any man. Siobhan, Lily told herself, had been bound to notice that something was up.

"You have, and you did so without your mother's word, too."

"And if, once in a while, I feel like making myself look pretty," said Lily defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. "Is there anything amiss about that?"

"Not at all," said Siobhan, highly amused as they resumed their walk. "Speaking of beauty, though; the young man you were flirting with last night, was he handsome?"

Lily stopped in her tracks. Again. This time she was _genuinely_ surprised. "What on earth are you talking about, flirting? I never flirt!"

"Servants talk, you know," said Siobhan, tapping her nose. "And I happened to hear from a reliable source that you were dancing with a very personable young man last night. Is this the Remus we're visiting?"

"Who told you that?" said Lily, going red.

"Santa Claus," said Siobhan calmly.

"_Siobhan_!"

Siobhan laughed and stuck her tongue out at Lily. "Mary Scully said that she was carrying some plates and she saw her mistress' daughter, dancing with a very attractive young man who most definitely _not_ the man she is rumoured to be getting engaged to. It was all very scandalous, apparently. The old ladies sitting in the corner were buzzing about it all evening."

"Oh, those women are just spiteful old cats," Lily scoffed. "What is it to anyone if I dance with a man who isn't Edward Chamberly? I'm not engaged to him yet, and until then I can dance with whomever I like!"

"I was only teasing, Lily," said Siobhan softly. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I shall kill Mary when we get back to Cheshire," Lily replied venomously, even though Mary Scully clearly wasn't the problem, more the mere fact that her marriage to Chamberly was already accepted as fact amongst the Brighton people.

"Lily?"

Lily heaved a heavy sigh. "Yes?"

"Do you like him?"

"Who?" said Lily, feigning ignorance and still feeling very put-out.

"Remus Lupin, the man you were dancing with," Siobhan also sighed heavily. "You're playing ignorant."

"I was not dancing with Remus Lupin; I was dancing with a friend of his," Lily answered stuffily. "And if your question implies what I think it implies, no, I do not _like_ him, no matter how handsome he is. Or however nice his hair may be," she added as an afterthought.

"His hair?"

"Nothing," she said, feeling agitated. "It's really nothing. The man in question is not even worth discussing."

"I see," said Siobhan. "And this is the reason why you're blushing, yes?"

"I am _not_!" Lily was most definitely blushing, and it annoyed her to admit (inwardly only, of course) that it may have had something to do with the fact that the cretin was very, very handsome indeed.

"Worry not, darling, I won't tell anybody, particularly not Mary Scully." Siobhan poked her in the ribs. "Do you know the name of this handsome friend?"

"Oh look, there's the house!" Lily cried, still blushing furiously.

"How interesting. His name, please? Is he as delicious as your dream man?"

"There are apple trees in the garden. How lovely!"

"His name?"

"And is that a fountain?"

"Lily Elizabeth Evans! His name!"

"Come on, Siobhan!" Lily grabbed her friend's hand and started running through the Lupin's small and rather pretty orchard in order to distract her, and in doing so she succeeded in preventing Siobhan from questioning her any further. She sprinted through the trees, around the flower beds and up the large stone slabs that led to the Lupin's front door without a breath, dragging her poor, unfortunate maid behind her. Siobhan almost fell over when they halted quite abruptly on the front steps.

"You are quite unfit, you know," Lily said.

"You are quite dishevelled, you know," said Siobhan smugly, brushing off her dress. And sure enough, Lily's cheeks were red and several strands of her hair had escaped from the pins, half of which were scattered around the garden. Siobhan raised her fist to the door and smiled beautifully at her friend.

"No, no, Siobhan, don't! I can't be seen looking like this! Do you have any hair pins? Let's go back and find mine!"

But Siobhan, grinning wickedly, had already knocked on the door.

* * *

"So you see, Moony, it was perfectly innocent."

Remus, after several hours listening to his protestations of innocence, still didn't look like he believed him. The whole morning had been a long and stormy battle.

"I'm not saying that I don't trust you, James," he was saying. "But I know what you can be like when your mind is set on something and I-"

"Moony, for Merlin's sake, James has been through this a million times," said Sirius, who was lying on the chaise lounge with his arm thrown over his eyes. He isn't chasing after Chamberly's things, it was a joke."

James, who was sitting on Remus' very large bedroom windowsill and trying half-heartedly to read a Quidditch book, looked over the top at his best friend with incredulous eyes.

"You call her one of his _things_, Padfoot?"

Sirius grunted from beneath his arm, and evidently this was all he needed to do to explain himself.

"Is anybody else at a loss to explain why Sirius is so popular with the fairer sex?" James asked of the group in general. Peter shrugged from his spot on Remus' bed and Remus, looking slightly mollified, uncrossed his arms and sat down next to him.

"It is, I'm afraid, one of the more terrible and ironic things about life."

"Indeed," said Peter, turning a page of his own adventure book. "Murders and criminals live to a grand old age, dirty businessmen end up unbelievably wealthy, and people like Sirius get all the girls."

"People like Sirius don't want all the girls, most of them are so _mindless_," said Sirius lazily. "Although I must say, your girl is pretty as women go, Prongs."

"She's not _my_ girl, though." James leaned his back against the wall.

"Poor Prongs," said Peter, who mimicked wiping a tear from his eye

"Unrequited love is the worst thing these days, or so I've heard," said Sirius.

"Oh yes," Remus played along. "It is the fashion now, you know."

"I don't _want_ her to be my girl, either!" James insisted. His friends had, for the last hour, been ribbing him about Lily Evans and he was sick of trying to convince them that he really didn't care about her that much. And he really didn't. He could admit that he had reacted a tad strongly to her at the ball last night, but in the cold light of day, James was able to see things more clearly and it occurred to him that staying away from Lily Evans was not going to be that difficult. After all, she was only a girl, a very beautiful girl, but a girl nonetheless. There were plenty of those about to get involved with. His weird, sudden infatuation with Lily Evans was nothing more than his old habit of wanting something he couldn't have.

"You're lying," said Peter simply.

"I'm not," he insisted stubbornly. "Even if I was, I'll pull my hair out before I chase any girl, and I certainly wouldn't do so just to hurt Chamberly. He's not worth it, and I'm not that bad a person," he finished, sending a level glare in one Remus Lupin's direction.

"Fine," said Remus, sighing resignedly. "I believe you."

"Why do you care about what happens to that girl anyway?" said Sirius.

"It wouldn't have been fair of James to use her, just to get at Edward," he explained. "Although now that I know he isn't, I'm not worried."

"I thought she was very nice," Peter piped up. "She reminded me of somebody, or perhaps I've met her somewhere before."

"Really? Where?" said James curiously, not that he cared. Peter shrugged. Remus mumbled something about Shakespeare and Sirius managed a disinterested grunt. His friends were very strange.

They all lapsed into silence, and there was nothing but the sound of pages turning for a while. Gradually, Sirius' snores started to fill the room.

"He sounds rather like an animal when he snores, doesn't he?" Peter remarked.

"Sometimes I think that his human form is his true Animagus, and he was really meant to be a dog all along," said Remus quietly. "Especially when his legs start twitching in his sleep."

There was a loud knock on Remus' bedroom door. Sirius snorted and jumped slightly, but wasn't roused from his slumber.

"Come in," said Remus.

The door opened and one of the maids poked her head into the room.

"Mr. Lupin?" she said, looking confused. "There is a friend of yours at the door. She said she met you at the dance last night, Miss Lily Evans?"

"Miss Evans is here?" said Remus. James, who had been staring out of the window, not caring much about anything and certainly not caring about Lily Evans, jumped at the sound of her name and watched in woeful embarrassment as his book slid off his lap and onto the floor

" She is downstairs in the parlour, sir, if you want to see her," said the maid.

"Oh, right. Of course." Remus heaved himself up from his bed. "Does anyone else want to accompany me?"

"Just as soon as I finish my chapter," said Peter, whose flushed cheeks and rapt eyes were a sure sign that he had reached a thrilling part of his book. James and Remus looked at Sirius, but he was still snoring with wild abandon. Remus shot a questioning glance at James.

"I'll come, Moony." He hopped off the windowsill and immediately ran a hand through his hair so that it stood out in all possible directions. Remus smiled knowingly at him, but said nothing in front of the maid. When they were walking down the stairs, however, he elbowed him in the ribs.

"I thought you said that you didn't care?" he whispered.

"I don't," James whispered back. "But there is no law against trying to look presentable for company."

They found her in the parlour examining some sheets of music on Remus' old piano, and she did not turn when they entered the room, so she obviously had not heard them. There was another girl with blonde hair hovering awkwardly near the window, dressed in simpler clothes, and she had obviously been sent as her chaperone. She coughed, and Lily Evans spun around to greet them.

Of course, all of James's previous resolve seemed to fly away and he was seized with a wild, crazy urge to pull her to him and kiss her until she passed out in his arms.

"Mr Lupin," she said, smiling as she sank into a curtsey.

"Miss Evans." Remus did a dutiful little bow. "It's delightful to see you here but I must confess myself a little confused. Is anything amiss?"

"Oh, everything is just fine, don't worry!" she said, and then proceeded to look at James as if she had just noticed him there. "Good afternoon, Mr Potter."

This was said breezily, and she dropped her attentions to him with a swiftness that confused him, as if they hadn't shared two dances and one strange and peculiarly flirtatious conversation the night before. One would almost swear that she was a completely different girl. He ran a hand through his hair and resolved to be as unaffected as possible.

"Good afternoon, Miss Evans," he said.

"Mr Lupin, this is my handmaiden and dearest friend, although that information is not something that everybody is party to, Siobhan Finnegan. Siobhan, this is my new friend Remus Lupin and his friend James Potter."

"Hello," Siobhan said quietly, from her spot by the window, looking very surprised to have been introduced to the two of them like an equal. James thought her name sounded quite familiar but he didn't bring up the subject, for he was too busy trying to figure out the enigma that was Lily Evans, who still wasn't looking at him. He looked at Remus, who seemed to be quite mystified as well.

"Anyway," said Lily, once James and Remus had said hello to Siobhan Finnegan. "The reason that I made my way here was to invite you to dinner on behalf of my host, Mr Chamberly." Here she caught James' eye for a slight second, as if by mistake, and blushed a little. "He is having a small gathering tonight at seven o' clock and he would very much like it if both of you and your friends could join us."

"That sounds like a fine idea. What do you think, James?" said Remus.

"Yes, it does," said James dully, now staring unashamedly at Lily Evans, still pointedly being ignored.

"Excellent," said Remus, smiling in that genial way of his. Lily smiled back, and James was suddenly gripped by unwarranted jealousy. "We'd love to come. I'll just find my mother and let her know of our plans."

"Wonderful," said Lily, with a dazzling smile on her face. Once Remus left the room, however, she dropped the smile, and her pleasant manner, and turned to speak to her friend in low tones. "Siobhan, do you mind if I speak to Mr Potter alone for a moment?"

Siobhan Finnegan, looking as much confused as Remus and James and possibly everybody else involved might have felt, hurriedly left the room and in doing so left James and Lily alone.

"I might have minded, you know," he told her. "It was rather rude of you not to ask."

Lily Evans turned her brilliant green eyes on him and smiled coyly.

"_Do_ you mind?" she asked, to which he could only shake his head. Of course he didn't mind, how could he have minded? He wanted nothing more than to be locked away alone with her for the rest of his life. "I need to borrow a book from you."

"A book?" He furrowed his brow and wondered if she had somehow conspired with his friends to play a trick on him or something equally mad. "I mean to say, of course you can borrow a book from me but, why on earth do you need a book, and from me, of all possible people?"

"Mr Chamberly wanted to send a messenger here with the invitation for Mr Lupin," she began, making her way over to him with small, slow steps, and stopped when they were mere feet away. "I needed an excuse to come here."

"That was rather conniving of you, Miss Evans. I don't mean to offend you, of course."

"I'm not offended," she said, with a little smug smile. "Has your impression of me altered in any way since last night, or is it as of yet unchanged?"

"Not at all," he responded. He was more than well aware that he was flirting with her and he knew that he ought to feel guilty, but he felt rather like he had to, lest he burst. Besides, she was knowingly encouraging him along. "I'm rather intrigued by you, to be honest."

She raised her eyebrows. "So, I may borrow a book from you?"

"You can, if you tell me why you were so intent upon coming here."

"Oh, Mr Potter, my motivations for coming here wouldn't be of any consequence to you, I'm sure."

"Oh," he paused, wondering if perhaps she had been driven here by a wild desire to see Remus. "Is that so?"

She smiled at him, a mischievous, wicked, alluring smile that answered his question even before the words left her lips, and he knew then that he was completely and utterly lost.

"Of course not."

**A/N: Less cheese? Maybe? More sass? I hope so.**


	8. One Sided Conversations

**One-Sided Conversations**

"Why, there you are, my dear. I've been scouring the house in search of you!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, father!" said Lily, hurriedly stepping behind a table in an effort to hide the rather large brown stain that resided on her dress. "I called upon Meadowbrook Lodge this afternoon and I've only just returned. Did my mother not inform you?"

Lily had just returned from her sojourn to the Lupin household with Siobhan, bringing with her a worsened headache, a book that she knew not a whit about and several large bruises on her knee. Siobhan had dashed in through the staff entrance to attend to her errands upon reaching the house, leaving Lily to brave Mr Chamberly's company by herself. Therefore, she had been most delighted, upon entering the manor, to find that the inhabitants of the house seemed to have vanished, and was busy exploring the study when her father walked in and happened upon her.

"She did not, it seems," said Mr Evans, crossing the dark, stuffy room with quick strides and stopping to kiss her forehead. "She and your sister have taken it upon themselves to visit the town today with the baby."

"I see," Lily laughed. "Searching for the latest fashions, I presume?"

"As always," he returned her laugh. "And it may or may not please you to know that Mr Chamberly and your sister's husband shall be fishing for some time yet, so you may be as muddy as you like, my dear."

Lily blushed furiously as her father gestured towards her ruined skirt. "I took a little tumble on the walk home, I'm afraid. I must appear quite unladylike."

She did not add that the 'tumble' had come as a result of her thoughts being occupied too much by a certain black haired young man, and not enough by her surroundings, and had no desire to. Siobhan would be sure to remind her of her hilarious fall every day for the rest of their lives.

"Nonsense, I am far fonder of you with muddy skirts and rosy cheeks than when you're ladylike. You look very much like my little girl," he said, eyes twinkling as he nodded his approval. "Besides," he added, with a grin. "I am sure that our ever hospitable host will rush out at once upon hearing of your scrape and buy you ten new dresses."

"I am sure he shall," she giggled, smiling up at her father and wondering whether she had imagined the sarcasm in his voice or not when he had referred to Chamberly. "But I dread to think of mother's reaction when she sees this."

"She will forbid you from walking ever again, I am sure," said her father. "All the more reason for you to soak up as much of it as you can today. Would you mind terribly, dear, if I asked you to accompany your poor old father on a stroll?"

"Why, certainly, sir, for I would never dare to refuse such a distinguished gentleman."

She took his arm and they made their way to Chamberly's garden, the one area of his estate with which Lily could find no fault. Well-kept and thriving, it was absolutely beautiful, a veritable fairyland of delicate flowers and majestic old trees, babbling brooks and ponds inhabited by fish and frogs. A winding, pebbly pathway weaved its way in and around the various flower beds and rockeries, and in one part of the garden she discovered an old swing hanging from the branch of an oak tree, right next to a pretty fountain, that she was desperate to try. Lily delighted in all of it, and marvelled that a person with Chamberly's woeful taste in décor could have imagination enough to keep a garden like this one.

"You said that you called upon the Lupin family this afternoon, did you not?" her father asked presently, shaking her out of her reverie as they passed a cluster of merry looking yarrow flowers.

"Yes, I did. Mr Chamberly wished to invite Master Lupin and his friends to dine with us this evening, and I offered to call at the house and extend the offer personally."

"And did young master Lupin accept?"

"He did. He and his friends shall be arriving at seven."

Her father nodded, and they walked in peace for a short while. Truth be told, Lily very much enjoyed being in the company of her father, whom she felt had always understood her best, perhaps far more than he might let on to other members of her family.

"If you do not mind my asking, my dear, but why did you offer to call in at the Lodge at all? Why not send a messenger?" he said, presently. It was a perfectly innocent question to ask, but the answer that immediately presented itself in her mind was not one that Lily thought she could repeat to anyone else.

"Oh, well…" She could feel her face glowing once more, a sensation which had now become so familiar that it was beginning to severely irritate her. "Mr Lupin mentioned a book last night that I was desperate to borrow, you see."

"Surely Mr Lupin could have brought the desired book with him tonight, had you asked the messenger to remind him of it?"

"I suppose he could have, yes," she stammered, not looking at her father. There was something in his tone which suggested that he was very much amused by something, and Lily could only wonder at the possibilities of what he might be thinking. "However, I happen to enjoy the walk, and I had a desire to see his house for myself. I have heard it spoken of as being simply grand ever since we arrived in Brighton."

"And were you pleased by what you saw there?"

"Oh yes." In truth, Lily could not remember a single thing about Remus Lupin's house. She had been so agitated upon entering that it was all she could do to stay still until Remus had come downstairs to greet her, accompanied by none other than the cretin himself.

She winced at the memory of the conversation that had taken place between herself and Potter when Remus had left the room in search of his mother. She could not recall the exact words she had spoken, only that they were dreadfully improper and had flown out of her mouth before she could stop them, as her mind had evidently decided to take complete leave of its senses without informing her beforehand. Lily felt like she would never overcome the humiliation of it all, and was now sincerely terrified by the prospect of the evening that lay ahead.

"Did you speak to the Potter boy while you were there, by any chance?" said her father, not looking at her, but feigning interest in the sparrow that had just landed on a nearby rose bush.

"Yes, I did, as it happens," she said quietly, blinking back sunlight. Her father could apparently read minds now. "Why do you ask?"

"Not for any particular reason. I merely wondered if you had finished your conversation."

"What conversation?"

"The conversation that you were engaged in last night, while you were dancing with him," he said, and removed his gaze from the sparrow momentarily to look down at her with raised eyebrows. "I did not hear a word of your exchange, of course, but you seemed to be quite enraptured."

Her face now beet red, it took Lily several seconds of opening and shutting her mouth to no avail before her father realized that she was evidently unable to speak.

"Of course, I would never dare attempt to make assumptions concerning any woman I may be acquainted with, even if she is my own daughter, for I have been proven wrong far too many times before."

"I, I see," she said slowly, now completely out of her mind.

"Please, do not look so offended, my dear. I'm sure that I wasn't suggesting anything untoward. I was merely curious to discover your opinion of the boy," he said, apparently under the impression that he had slighted her maidenly virtue or some other such nonsense that Lily could not have cared less about. "I didn't have the pleasure of conversing with him for long, but I must say that I liked him immediately."

"As I recall, you did inform me of this fact last night," she said, smiling to herself as the panic passed. Her father did not know anything of her plans. "And that he has a handshake to be envied!"

"Did I?" he muttered absently. She nodded. "One tends to forget such details as he grows older. Of course, it is quite probable that my judgment is not to be trusted, and now that I have witnessed your reaction to my earlier comment concerning your contact with the boy, I must assume that he is a ruffian of the lowest sort!" He winked at her.

"Oh, not at all! I think that he is a very amenable young man," she laughed, trying to pretend that she really meant it. It would ruin all of her plans if her father refused to allow Potter to come near her. Lily knew that her father was joking, but all the same, it would be prudent of her to allow him to think well of the scoundrel, for now. "He and his friends appear to be very pleasant."

"I am glad to hear it, my dear, as I would very much like it if they could call here from time to time."

"Why do you say that, father? Is our host not company enough for you?"

"I am hoping to provide company for _you_, my dear, for you. You must find this house to be so dreadfully dull, being the youngest here, your housemates engaged in tasks that do not interest you, and with all of your friends remaining in Cheshire. You will need to make some friends if you are to survive the summer, I think. The Potter boy and his friends appear to be well-mannered, pleasant chaps, all from fairly decent families, or so I hear, and moreover," he added, in an odd voice. "They are _your_ age."

"Surely, father, you can't condone the idea of a young lady spending so much of her free time with four rowdy boys?" Lily asked him, not allowing her thoughts to linger on his emphasis of their age and what on earth that might mean. "Why, it's dreadfully improper."

"To some, perhaps," he replied thoughtfully. "Your mother would most certainly not approve. I, on the other hand, would encourage them to call here as much as possible," He withdrew his arm from hers and stepped ahead of her, "Especially when our host cannot be here with us, perhaps."

Lily froze in her tracks and gaped at her father's back. "What do, what do you mean by-"

"You know, my dear, I am feeling dreadfully tired all of a sudden. Perhaps I shall go inside and rest before I must brave the onslaught of my business associates this evening."

Without giving her the opportunity to answer him, he kissed her on the cheek and strode briskly toward the house, leaving Lily immobile in the sunshine with a pounding heart and the vague inkling that maybe he was not as supportive of the purpose of their visit as he had previously lead her to believe.

* * *

James Potter was being driven insane.

Although he could not quite understand why Lily Evans seemed so intent upon engaging him a battle of wits, what he did understand perfectly was that they had squared off against each other two times and both times she had emerged victorious, leaving him stuttering and stammering like an inarticulate fool. James had never made a fool of himself over a member of the opposite sex before, it was the girls who made fools of themselves over him, and the fact that this girl could engage him in conversation and leave him feeling like an idiot was irritating, and beyond that, downright mortifying.

He spent a considerable amount of time pondering this unwelcome information after she and her maid had left the house that afternoon, following a rather flirtatious conversation on her part that had fully succeeded in making him appear like a dim-witted buffoon, and by the time they were to leave for dinner at Chamberly's house he had come up with a plan of his own that would hopefully leave Miss Evans in much the same state as she had left him.

* * *

"Just through here, lads, just through here," said Chamberly, ushering the boys into the dining room in his usual brash manner. "I shall be quite busy this evening, as you know; very important business matters to discuss, it's all very hush-hush. I was hoping for dinner this evening to be a more informal event, but Mr Davenport is quite adamant that I alone am the one to handle his affairs, and so it simply couldn't be put off. He trusts me implicitly, you know, and…"

James was not listening to a word that Chamberly was saying.

She was already seated at the table when they entered the dining room and looking more attractive than she had any right to in a very pretty brown and cream dress, next to a woman whom James had never met before but knew to be the wife of a Mr Davenport. As Chamberly and Mr Harris were unmarried (considering the looks that M. Harris was wont to send in Sirius' direction every time they met, James suspected that a wife was not what _he_ was looking for), he knew Mrs Hastings well, and he had been introduced to Lily's mother and sister last night, it made sense that she would be the wife of the only man here whom he had never met. Davenport was apparently here to negotiate the sale of some shares in a hospital, or some other such nonsense. James rarely paid attention when Chamberly spoke.

"Well, let us see. Mr Black, if you sit here, and then Patrick, you can-"

"Now, Edward, I am sure that the young men can find their own way to the table," said Mr Evans, striding forward to shake the hands of the four of them. "Good evening, Mr Black, and how superbly nonchalant you are tonight. You must teach me how to mimic you one day."

Sirius grinned at James once Mr Evans had finished shaking his hand and moved on to Peter, clearly indicating that he, like James, most definitely approved of this odd man.

Mr Pettigrew, who, if I remember correctly, goes by the name of Peter, yes? I do so hope that you are not feeling as woeful as you did last night. I recall you mentioning that you had a desire to die?"

"Er…" said Peter.

"No matter, Mr Pettigrew, for I am quite certain that we shall not be eating cigars for dinner."

"Yes," said Peter slowly. "Yes. Er… quite."

"Mr Lupin, I have not had the pleasure of conversing with you for long, but rest assured that I shall think of something appropriately witty to say to you before the night is over."

"Thank you, sir," said Remus cautiously.

"And Mr. Potter. Ah, how are you? As firm a handshake as ever, I see. Tell me, does your hair always look like that?"

"Yes. Yes, sir, it does," he replied, slightly flummoxed. Behind Mr Evans, he could see that his youngest daughter was pointedly avoiding looking in their direction.

"I'm jealous. My own hair has always been horribly well behaved. Well now, oh, let's see, Potter, why don't you sit right here, next to my daughter?"

And so it transpired that James ended up sitting directly beside the girl he had been thinking about all day, with Remus at this right. Sirius and Peter sat directly across from them beside, to Sirius' dismay, Mrs Evans, Mrs Dursley and Mrs Hastings. Chamberly, Evans, Davenport, Hastings, Dursley and Harris made up the far end of the table, so he felt quite pleased with the knowledge that he could have Lily all to himself this evening.

They mumbled their way through the usual stinted greetings as the meal started, and James waited until the conversations of the other guests were in full swing before he turned slightly in his chair and spoke to her in lowered tones. He did not want to be interrupted.

"How are you this evening, Miss Evans?"

"Wonderful, thank you. And you, Mr Potter?"

"Much the same, I thank you. I trust that your family are all well?"

"All of my family members are present at this table, and you have eyes with which to see, have you not?" she retorted sweetly, her eyes fixed on her plate. He grinned to himself, she was certainly sharp, but she would not be defeating him this time. Now was the time to put his plan in motion.

"I must admit that my eyes are not serving me particularly well tonight, Miss Evans, for in spite of my best protests, they remain resolute in their intention to focus solely upon you."

It worked just as he hoped. She froze in the act of raising her glass to her lips, set it back down and turned a pair of bewildered emerald eyes on him. He stared resolutely back at her.

"This is entirely your fault, of course," he continued, as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. "My eyes might have stood a fair chance of being distracted by something else, but you do insist upon looking beautiful, so I find myself simply unable to observe your family members and therefore I must rely on your account of their welfare."

"I… I see," she said, and to his delight she seemed to be embarrassed. She did not speak for a moment, but gazed thoughtfully at a spot above his shoulder. His eyes were drawn to the pale, creamy skin of her neck and he had to clear his throat and blink several times before he spoke again. Strange impulses overcame him whenever he was around this girl.

"Your family, Miss Evans?"

"Oh yes," she snapped out of whatever daze she was in and met his eyes again. "As you may have noticed, Mr Potter, my mother has turned bright blue."

"Has she? Oh dear!" he said, still staring at her neck. It really was too ridiculously appealing. Why hadn't she covered it up? She clearly meant to torment him to death.

"My sister has two heads. No, actually, she just turned into a man."

"How odd, you know, that's normally something I'd notice."

"And my father has sprouted wings and is flying above the table."

"Surely there's a cream for that?"

"Are you always such an importunate flirt, Mr Potter?" she replied, her tone snappish. However, the corners of her mouth were trying desperately hard not to turn upwards, so he knew that he had not really offended her. It would have been hypocritical of her to accuse him of the very same crimes she had committed, moreover.

"If I'm making you feel uncomfortable, Miss Evans, you may ask me to stop."

"Very well," she said, and put down her fork. "Would you please stop flirting with me, Mr Potter?"

"No." he said bluntly, and smirked. She blushed pink and looked back down at her plate, taking up her fork again.

"You may be as quiet as you like, Miss Evans," James carried on, quite in his element. "But I find it incumbent upon me to inform you that I'm quite capable of carrying on a conversation by myself."

She shrugged her pretty shoulders and carried on eating, taking care not to look up. Undeterred, James carried on with his monologue.

"Why, you're looking quite splendid this evening, Miss Evans. Oh, thank you, Mr Potter, and please allow me to say that you are most certainly the handsomest man I have ever met. Oh, Miss Evans, you shouldn't have! How could I resist, Mr Potter? You are most assuredly the most attractive man alive. Miss Evans, you're making me blush! Let us move on to different subjects before we get carried away!"

Beside him, she let out a rather loud snort of laughter, which she hastily turned into a cough when several heads turned in her direction, and continued to ignore him. Perhaps it had been the falsetto tones in which he had imitated her. Amused by her sudden unwillingness to speak, James decided to speak no more to her until she initiated some sort of a conversation by herself. He continued to stare at her, smirking, and listening to the exchanges going on around him that seemed so vastly out of place in this little world which he had concocted around himself and that insupportably bewitching girl.

"It would be wise to consider all aspects of this contract, Mr Hastings, before a price is agreed upon…"

"Yes, yes, of course. I assume that Charles is to remain the majority shareholder, considering his previous dealings with Mr Radcliffe and his…"

"Stop acting like a frightened child, Peter, and put it in her soup!"

"You do it, Padfoot! She keeps looking at me!"

"Will you two please stop that and be quiet? And put that back in your pocket, Sirius!"

"Of course, I told Anna Marie that it was simply elegant, for what else could be done for her?"

"If only she had listened to Theodora, we wouldn't have to look at that monstrosity of a necklace every day…"

"If you're under the impression that you've made me uncomfortable and startled me into a lifelong silence, Mr Potter, you couldn't be more wrong. I'm perfectly at ease," said Lily suddenly, shooting him a sidelong glance. He smiled in spite of himself.

"I think nothing of the sort, Miss Evans, nor do I endeavour for you to feel so," he lied. "Are you enjoying the book I gave you?"

"People are bound to notice you if you persist in staring at me, you know," she said, ignoring his statement, as if she had forgotten how she had spent the last two days trying to seduce _him_ and was trying to berate him for doing the same. He bit his tongue.

"I don't particularly care." And he didn't care. In fact, he felt that she should have been grateful to him for only staring, especially when thoughts of exploring her throat with his mouth were currently flooding his mind at quite an alarming rate. This was entirely her fault. No woman had any business to be that pretty. "Do you make a point of not answering the questions I ask you?"

She did not reply to him in words, but shot him an amused look and shook her head, smiling to herself.

"I suppose that answers my question." He laughed quietly. "Well played."

"I try my best," she said softly, so that only he could hear her. "Perhaps you should change the subject and stop asking me questions. Then maybe I would be more willing to respond."

He nodded in agreement, and looked around the room for inspiration. The particularly unpleasant mounted head of a stag which hung above the fireplace caught his eye, and he made a face.

"You know, I've always wondered about this dining room," he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he surveyed the many other deceased animals that lined the walls. "I think this is where Brighton's wildlife comes to die."

There was no disguising Lily's laughter as a cough this time as she let out a sudden, raucous snort that rang around the room and silenced the other diners. The girl's face turned bright red as every pair of eyes in the room were suddenly turned on her, and James could see her mother bite her lip as if she were desperate to reprimand her.

It amused James a little that her laugh was so hideous, because to him she seemed so out of place otherwise, with her fashionable silk dress and perfectly styled hair, sitting prim and upright on an antique chair and eating off expensive china plates. James was no stranger to the aristocracy; he had grown up surrounded by wealth and dinner parties and fashionable people, and while Lily was undeniably beautiful in all her finery he had rarely ever seen a girl who looked as utterly uncomfortable as she did in this situation. She was so pedantic and methodical in her movements, in her speaking, even in the way she held her fork, so careful, like she was trying hard to hold herself rigidly in check, and it drove him insane. That obnoxious, horrible laugh she had emitted seemed to be the only natural thing about her. He silently resolved to induce that laugh as much as he possibly could.

"Er… Miss Evans?" Peter's voice cut through both this thoughts and through the awkward silence that had settled after Lily's outburst.

"Yes, Mr Pettigrew?" Lily all but whispered, still visibly mortified.

"Forgive me if I sound rude or impudent, but I am quite certain that I have met you somewhere before."

"You know," she whispered, putting down her fork and suddenly seeming far more interested in the subject. "I was thinking the very same thing myself."

"You were?" said Peter.

"Oh, I was! I was quite sure last night when I saw you that we must have met before."

"That is most odd indeed," said Sirius. "Tell me, Miss Evans, have you ever been known to attend the ballet?"

"Yes, sometimes. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you see, Peter here is quite the avid ballet dancer, and-"

"Sirius!"

The conversation turned to a competition between Sirius, Peter and Remus to see who could suggest the most outlandish location where Peter and Lily might have met, a competition which carried on well into the evening and was still on-going when they said their goodbyes. James did not offer much to the discussion, Lily would not speak to _him_ unless he spoke first, and therefore the rest of the evening passed, between them at least, in relative silence.

* * *

"Are you quite sure that we can do this legally?" he said, surveying the papers that lay before him with furrowed brows. The man he was speaking to did not answer at first, but continued to write something from where he was seated. Moonlight spilled in through the bare windows and drenched the two men in eerie, luminescent light.

"I've told you a million times before, Henry, yes, we can. Once the girl and I are married, I doubt that there will be any way to prevent it from happening." He looked up from his papers and continued on, his voice dispassionate. "They have no sons to pass their fortune to."

"But, what about…" the man faltered, and Edward Chamberly looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

"What, Henry?"

"All I mean is that… well, Evans seems to be in good health, which leaves us with only one other option, you know. Perhaps-"

"Do not think that I wasn't aware of that?" said Chamberly coldly. "Or would you like to wait another ten years until we could get it done in one?"

The other man shook his head and backed a little away from the desk. "That's not what I mean. I don't…. I don't care one whit for the man. I do worry, however, about your ability to carry this off again, especially after-"

"What are you trying to say, exactly?" said Chamberly, rising quickly from his desk. "You don't think that I can handle such a task?"

"That is not what I meant! After the last time-"

"After the last time, as I recall, neither of us were caught, nor were we convicted of anything! It will be the same this time around. Nobody will know. Nobody will be hurt. I shall make sure that his wife is well provided for." He ran a hand through his hair. "After two years, nobody but you has any inkling of the part I played in my own father's downfall! And besides," he added, casting his gaze toward a small, velvet covered box that lay in his open desk drawer. "I've taken a liking to the girl."

"His daughter?"

"Yes, his daughter. Or did you think that I would discard her after we finished?"

"I was not sure of your intentions towards her, Edward. You seemed so impatient to begin with-"

"I like the girl, Henry. She is young and vivacious, and quite pretty besides. In any case it is about time for me to choose a wife. She will do just fine, and I will make sure that she is perfectly comfortable. You cannot think me to so low as to break an innocent girl's heart for the sake of this project, can you?"

"I do not know what to think any more, Edward."

"Then let me put it in a way you will understand. I have enough information about you to have to put away for a very long time, and if you decide to discard our plans at this stage I will have no hesitation in contacting the authorities."

"You wouldn't!"

"I most certainly would, if you attempted to jeopardize this project any further. You, my friend, have never been able to hide your tracks quite as well as I have, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to have you sent away. You know this. Now either you are on board with this endeavour or you are going to jail. Which is it to be?"

There was a long silence in which the two men stared each other from opposite sides of the room, each silently daring the other to speak. Eventually, the man named Henry Hastings sighed in defeat and sank down into the seat he had previously been occupying.

"Fine," he muttered.

"Have I made myself clear?" said Chamberly.

Henry Hastings took a long time responding.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes. You have made yourself perfectly clear."

"Well then," said Edward Chamberly, sitting back down in his seat and reaching for a cigar. "The matter is now settled."

**A/N: I still think the worst thing about Chamberly is that he smokes cigars.**


	9. The Cold Hard Truth

**The Cold Hard Truth**

"Are you sure you can't come out with us to town this afternoon, darling?"

Lily was curled up in an armchair in Dudley's nursery, holding a tissue to her nose, which was woefully red and runny. She was paler than usual, also, her skin pallid and clammy – lacking in its usual lustre and glow, and she was coughing incessantly at various intervals. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep, and her voice was frighteningly hoarse as she croaked out a refusal to her mother.

"I'm so sorry, mother," she whispered, her throat scratchy and dry. "I feel so dreadfully ill with this cold that I simply cannot leave the house."

She was, indeed, suffering from a most dreadful cold, but to Catherine Evans, a cold was just a cold and not any sort of reason to cancel important plans. Her daughter was not dying, nor would she be at risk of doing so, were she to accompany her parents, her sister, her brother-in-law and Mr Chamberly to Brighton town for a day of sightseeing, followed by dinner, and an evening spent at the theatre, and therefore Catherine had been harassing her daughter to get dressed and come with them all morning.

"Oh, but Lily, darling," Catherine implored, clasping her hands beneath her chin and gazing woefully at her youngest daughter, as if Lily had come down with a cold purely to hurt her. "I was so looking forward to spending the day together, all of us, like this. Now we shall have to cancel and make do with another day, and that will be such a bother, and you simply _must_ consider that -"

"Catherine, my love," said Lily's father, striding into the room and taking gentle hold of his wife's shoulders. "Lily is not fit to join us today, and we already have our tickets reserved, so we cannot cancel."

"What are we meant to do with her, if she can't accompany us?" said Catherine in dismay. "Leave her alone in the house? Mr Chamberly allowed all of the staff to take the afternoon and evening off because of the outing; there won't be anybody to take care of her. If she comes with us, at least she'll not be alone if she takes a nasty turn."

"Lily is quite old enough to take care of herself, dear," said Charles, his voice low and calming. "Petunia has said, also, that she would quite enjoy taking a small break from Dudley and Lily has kindly offered to take care of him for the day. As she should," he added, with a smile for his daughter. "She is his only aunt, and does not get to see him nearly enough."

"Did Petunia _really_ consent to leaving her baby in the care of an eighteen year old girl who has no experience in taking care of children?" said Catherine in surprise, as if Lily was not even in the room. "I could hardly imagine she would, where is she?"

Lily tried very hard not to snort with laughter. When she had offered to take care of her nephew for the day so that Petunia would not have to take the child with her for the day, her sister had not been able to deposit the baby into her arms fast enough. In fact, she was in her dressing room right at that moment, doing her hair and singing as blithely as if she were a changed woman. Petunia Dursley did, of course, worship her tiny son, but even the most devoted of mothers need a break now and then.

"Petunia and Evelyn told Lily everything she needed to know before Evelyn left the house earlier this morning," Charles explained to his wife. Evelyn was not only Dudley's nanny, but she had been Lily's and Petunia's when they were children. "Our daughters are sensible girls, Catherine. Lily would not have offered to take care of Dudley were she unfit to do so, much like Petunia would not have allowed her to. You mustn't worry so much, dear."

"Sensible? Hah!" replied Catherine, with a scoff. "I would hardly call it _sensible_ to go gadding to goodness-knows-where about in the countryside on foot, without coach nor horse. That's why she has fallen ill in the first place."

"I really am sorry mother, so terribly sorry," piped up Lily from her comfortable spot in the armchair, because despite her joy at not having to spend the day with her boring host, pretending to enjoy herself when she'd rather be walking on hot coals, she really did hate to disappoint her parents. "I know how much you were looking forward to today. I feel simply dreadful about it."

Catherine looked down at her daughter with a frown, but the expression on her face softened as she took in Lily's flushed cheeks and runny nose, and she lowered herself to her knees before her.

"Oh Lily. Listen to me go on. I'm sure we can do something like this again," she said sweetly, taking her daughter's cheek in her hand. "Don't take any mind of your silly old mother, I was just excited."

"I really am sorry," Lily repeated softly, covering her mother's hand with her own. Catherine smiled at her, and she smiled back. In her own strange way, Catherine Evans really did want the best for her children, and Lily knew that in spite of their differing opinions, her mother really did love her more than anything. "When I do feel better, perhaps tomorrow, I could play the piano for you in the drawing room, if you like. For all of you," she added, looking up at her father. "Mr Chamberly too."

"Oh darling, that would be so lovely of you," her mother gushed, stroking Lily's hair. Nothing delighted Catherine more than hearing her daughter play the piano, and she had been harassing Lily to play for Chamberly ever since they had arrived in Brighton. Lily herself adored piano, but she had a streak of contrariness inside of her that made her rebel against the notion of playing for their host. "Spend today relaxing and recovering and I shall bring you back something lovely from town. Something delicious and scrumptious and made of chocolate, perhaps. How about it?"

Lily nodded, with one of her prettier smiles, and Catherine Evans kissed her daughter's clammy forehead as if she were the most precious treasure she possessed. Which, in a way, Lily was.

There were times, Lily reflected, when she really was quite fond of her mother.

* * *

"Who was that at the door, Moony?"

"One of the maids at the Chamberly household," said Remus nonchalantly, as he came back into the room where the other three Marauders were lolling, holding a stack of books in his arms that had not been there when he left. "Chamberly borrowed these from my father, and he's given most of the household staff a day off, but he asked one of his maids to return these first."

"How gracious of him," said Sirius dryly, who was lying, as he did every single day, on the chaise lounge with an arm thrown over his eyes; as if being as impossibly handsome as he was an exhausting burden for him to bear. "Allowing one maid to carry those heavy books all the way over to the house, and on foot, no less. He is a champion amongst men."

"He gave the entire staff a full day off?" said Peter curiously, who was sitting on a chair near the chaise lounge, happily tucking into some chocolate cake. "That's very strange. Did the maid mention why?"

"Yes, actually," said Remus, and here he threw a cautionary glance at James, who was sitting on his bed doing nothing in particular. This, of course, immediately caught James' attention.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" he asked Remus, looked up at him in confusion. Remus rolled his eyes in exasperation, and carried on with what he was saying.

"He and the Evans family are spending the day on an outing in town, apart from, well..."

"Apart from whom, I wonder?" Sirius snorted. "Could it be James' new lady friend, perchance?"

"Well, yes, apart from Miss Evans," Remus finished. "She's at home with a cold."

"She's staying in the house alone?" said James, trying and failing not to look too interested. Sirius snorted with laughter again, even though he couldn't see him. Remus sat down on the other end of the bed and sighed, wearily, as if this whole situation was already tiring him out. "There's nobody else there?"

"Well, Chamberly left one or two staff members at the house in case of an emergency, but she is otherwise by herself, yes," Remus explained, and hesitated for quite some time before he continued in his speech, looking most uncomfortable. "The maid spoke to her before she left the house and Lily did ask her to relay a message to you, but I'm disinclined to tell you what it is."

"Why not?" said James petulantly, sticking out his lower lip like a put-old child.

"I could hear you two flirting at dinner the other night," said Remus simply, apologetic as he always was when he felt he had to tell James off about something. James knew that he would, of course, pass on the message that Lily had asked the maid to deliver, but his conscience would only be clear if he could at least give James a sensible warning beforehand. Even though he knew that James was likely to ignore it.

"The entire table could _feel_ the two of them flirting at dinner," said Peter cheerfully, wiping chocolate from the corners of his lips with the back of his hand.

"All except for Chamberly, of course," put in Sirius, with a short bark of a laugh. "He's completely self-obsessed and blinder than Prongs without his glasses."

"I'm not denying that she is a lovely girl, Prongs, and I can understand why you might feel drawn to her, but she is intended for Chamberly and she has said nothing thus far to insinuate that she doesn't intend to be engaged to him," Remus continued. "That isn't to say that I don't think you're more than a match for him, either, I just hope you'll be careful."

"I say ignore him, Prongs," offered Sirius, who still had not moved an inch since before Remus had left the room. "Fight Chamberly to the death, pitch him off the roof, and steal away with her in the night. Women love all of that stupid, romantic nonsense."

"She _is_ very nice," said Peter, who had a penchant for missing the point of conversations. "I think you and she would make a very nice couple, although," he added, his brow furrowing in confusion. "I can't shake the feeling that I have met her somewhere before."

James watched this exchange with furrowed brows and a scowl on his face, and paid no heed to any of it. Well, perhaps a little to Sirius, but only because the idea of pitching Chamberly off the roof was so very appealing that James didn't see how such a suggestion could be ignored.

"I'd like to hear her message please, Remus," he said simply, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I appreciate the concern, but as she is only a girl. I'm not liable to let myself get my heart broken."

He gave Remus a rather stony glare and Remus had the good grace to look ashamed, although not entirely convinced by James' assurances. Sirius was still sniggering to himself on the lounger, and Peter was scratching his own head in confusion as he tried to wrack his memory.

"Oh, crickets!" he was whispering to himself. "I shall be driven clean mad until I remember where I've met her before!"

"Very well," said Remus, after a long pause. "Miss Evans advised Chamberly's maid to tell you that she sends you her regards; she very much enjoyed the book you loaned her and asks if it would be possible to borrow another."

James took in this message in silence, a strange feeling churning in his stomach. He wondered if it were possible that she had stayed home from town on purpose, knowing that the house would be empty, in the hopes that he would pop over for a call.

"That's all she said?" he asked Remus, just to be sure. "She sends her regards and would like another book?"

"That's all I was told, at any rate," said Remus.

"Hmm. I see," said James, as if this meant nothing particularly special to him, even as his heart started racing at the idea of going to Chamberly's house to see her. He got up from the bed and wandered idly towards the door, hands in his pockets, looking as inconspicuous as if he had just stepped out to get a bite to eat. "I think I'm going to go for a walk."

* * *

Almost as soon as her family and Mr Chamberly left the house did Lily whip out the potion she had been hiding beneath a cushion and down it in one gulp, effectively curing herself of the cold that had been entirely self-inflicted by yet another potion she had made several days before they had travelled to Brighton in case of emergencies such as dreadful family outings, the remains of which had been poured out of the window and were now working strange wonders of one of Chamberly's rose bushes.

The maid that Chamberly had ordered to return John Lupin's books to him had been due to leave the house just minutes after the family, and Lily had cornered her in order to pass a message to James Potter, something that would have aroused the maid's suspicions had Lily not been so convincing when it came to playing innocent. She had left nearly five minutes ago, which meant that she would probably arrive at Meadowbrook Lodge in about fifteen – perhaps longer if she were weighed down by the books. Lily had been sorely tempted to bewitch the books to make them as light as a feather, and it frustrated her greatly that she could not, for obvious reasons. The poor maid was frail, and carrying those books must have been such a trial for her.

All in all, it gave Lily about an hour to spare before anyone arrived at the house, that is, if James Potter were to take her innocuous comment in the way she had hoped him to take it, and came over to call. Lily was not so arrogant as to think he might have any great desire to see her, but certainly she believed he was arrogant enough to wish to further his own plan against Chamberly.

She walked back into the nursery and blew a kiss at her little nephew, who was lying in his crib, before sitting in front of the mirror and examining herself. In case Potter was coming, she needed to wash and make-up her face and do up her hair in preparation for his arrival. That left just enough time for her to play with the baby for a little while and be fresh for when the hideous cretin came to the house.

Unfortunately for Lily, that was exactly the moment that her nephew decided to start crying.

* * *

"He _has_ gone over to the house, hasn't he?" said Remus, staring out of the window. James had been gone for nearly ten minutes and Remus would have bet his life that he had Apparated over to Chamberly's manor almost as soon as he was out of earshot.

"Yes, Moony," said Sirius, in his half-asleep state. "He has."

"He _is_ completely out of his mind," Remus continued, for he could not help but feel concerned for his friend, and for the girl he was so freely attaching himself to. "Isn't he?"

"Yes, Moony," Sirius repeated, seeming not to care much either way. "He is."

"This is going to cause a big commotion sooner or later, isn't it?"

"Yes, Moony." Sirius yawned. "It is."

"And this will turn out badly for everyone involved." Remus was sure that James was going to come off the worst in this scenario. "Won't it?"

"Not necessarily," piped up Peter from the corner all of a sudden, his voice unusually high, and a little wobbly for some reason. The two boys looked at him in curiosity, Sirius even sat up from the lounger; the smallest Marauder was red in the face, and smiling most delightedly to himself.

"Why not necessarily?" said Sirius, trying not to look too curious. "I thought yes necessarily."

"Yes, Peter," Remus agreed, and raised an eyebrow at the expression on his friend's eager looking face. "Why not indeed?"

"Because," said Peter happily, practically bursting with excitement; he looked up at his friends and let out a giddy, silly little laugh. "I just remembered where I've met her!"

* * *

"Dudley, _please_," Lily pleaded, but it was no use, the baby had long since settled into a crying habit that his mother and father had as of yet been unable to break. "_Please_, Dudley, stop crying. Your aunt Lily is about to die of frustration, and if that happens, your grandmother will surely kill her stone dead. Please, darling, _please_."

Dudley had been sobbing wildly without a break for close to twenty minutes and Lily had been driven distracted trying to calm him down. Offerings of food had not satisfied him, she had checked his nappy, found nothing and changed him anyway, sung to him, danced, and made funny little noises with his little stuffed bears, but still the insufferable child had cried ever onwards. Lily was ready to take a flying leap out of the window and leave him to his own devices.

"_Dudley_," she hissed, as the baby began to scream even louder than before, at a volume that could probably have smashed windows and alarmed all bats and dogs within a hundred mile radius. Even the two staff members that Chamberly had left in the house – both of whom were men and utterly useless in such situations – had left the building in a hurry, citing a need to tend to the garden. "Dudley, you insufferable little urchin, you have convinced me beyond all conceivable measure that I shall never, _ever_ have children."

She was at her wits end – her face was yet untouched and her hair had been left loose and was hanging down her back – aside from the pretty dress she had managed to swathe herself into before the baby had started to wail with any real vigour, she did not look fit to be seen. She hoped to God and all his angels that James Potter had not decided to come for a call because she most certainly would not be ready to greet him by the time he managed to walk over. Unless, of course, she killed the baby and then herself, which would at least give Potter something to talk about when he returned back to Meadowbrook Lodge – she had heard that discovering a dead body was a most interesting thing nowadays.

"Dudley," she begged her nephew one last time. "Dudley, _please_ don't cry, I beg of you, and if you do stop I promise that I won't throw you off the roof like you so thoroughly deserve."

It didn't work, of course, the baby only cried louder than ever, and in her moment of desperation Lily was forced to do something that she had promised herself never to do in Chamberly's house, and indeed, something that her mother would have killed her for: she reached into her silken stockings and pulled out her wand.

"Right," she said, waving the wand threateningly above the baby's head. "I will find something to keep you quiet or I do not deserve to be a witch, do you understand me? Of course you don't, you're a baby. I am talking to a baby like I would talk to an adult. Because I am mad, Dudley Dursley, utterly mad, and because nobody else in this _bloody_ house -" It was a testament to how irked Lily was, for she absolutely never swore, it was a detestable thing to do. "- treats _me_ like an adult, so I may as well speak to the one person whom I suppose is considered to be on my level, mayn't I?"

The baby merely continued to scream and cry and generally work her up into near heart attack.

"I hate children," she said to nobody in particular.

Another five minutes were spent thinking of inventing ways to cheer up the baby, including conjured bubbles, flower petals, colourful beams of light and silly little puffs of coloured smoke. Nothing had any effect on baby, and Lily was just about to abandon all hope and burst into tears when she remembered in the nick of time that Dudley had fallen foul of colic, and all it would take to make him stop crying was a very simple calming charm.

"Aequus," she muttered, pointing her wand at Dudley's tummy with grimy resignation, for if this did not work then nothing ever would. To her absolutely shock and delight, not only did the baby stop crying, but he smiled up at her as if he had not just spent the past half hour screaming the house down, and began to play with his little toes, perfectly at ease with himself and his surroundings.

"Oh, thank _God_," Lily sighed in relief, collapsing against the edge of the crib and resting her head against her arms. "Oh, I can hear again, I can _hear_ again, Merlin." She never wanted to move from that spot again. "I am never having children, _never_."

It was at that moment, and that moment precisely, that she heard a movement from somewhere behind her back.

She froze against the crib like a stone statue, and her heart clenched in fear. For several seconds, she listened breathlessly, hoping beyond hope that what she had just heard was a figment of her imagination, and that she had actually been driven demented by the baby's wailing, but it was not to be, for she heard somebody step into the room, and she was sure beyond all reasonable doubt that her secret had been discovered.

She didn't think twice; her wand was still in her hand. Within a second she had whipped around and pointed her wand in the direction of the door, shouting the incantation before she even had a chance to register who exactly it was who had happened upon her.

"Obliviate!"

Her view of the perpetrator was obscured by the dazzling flash of blue light that shot towards him or her and she felt relief fill her insides for a moment so brief that it could not have existed, for her spell was immediately and inexplicably deflected, shot to the left and hit the mirror she had only just been examining itself in; it shattered, and when the blinding light was gone she was left dumbfounded and staring at none other than James Potter, who was also holding a wand, and looking at her in very much the same way.


	10. The Beginning

**Author's Note: I'm not going to offer any excuses, and I probably deserve a slap. I might look over former chapters and rework them – again. I'm never happy with this fic because I was an awful writer when I started it. Now I think I'm a reasonably good writer and it doesn't fit with my standards. Urgh. Anyway, I updated. Finally. And you all thought I'd abandoned it!**

**It's short. The reason this chapter eluded me so long is because all of the stuff I really wanted to write – getting into the serious Lily/James stuff, happens in the chapter immediately following this one, which I can promise is long and full of interaction. This is just a way to bridge between. I apologise again for having kept everybody waiting, and I will endeavour to hurry the next chapter as fast as my fingers can carry me.**

**The Beginning**

Were the baby to scream, it would have been a welcome interruption, but the chubby little demon was finally peaceful. Lily's spell had done the job for which it had been designed, and little Dudley fell into a slumber; she had never felt unhappier to have performed magic with such precision.

There was, for there could be no other way, silence. It was an eerie silence, punctuated only by the sounds of errant shards of glass that dropped belatedly to the floor, and joined the rest of the devastated mirror. She could think of nothing to say. She was truly astonished, and terrified besides. All that she could do was stare in horror at James Potter, bewildered, and all James Potter did was stare right back at her, as if she was the first human being he had ever seen in his life. This was as much as she felt – as if she had been blinded for an age and was finally permitted to see, and she did not think she could ever forget how he looked at that exact moment, not if she lived for another hundred years. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, but an actual wizard, flesh and bone, with magical blood running through his veins, real and breathing and utterly undeniable. And her wand was pointing directly at his chest.

This thought seemed to dawn upon him as it had upon her, for he also held his wand aloft, but hastily dropped his arm to his side. He eyed her own wand warily, as though worried she might have attempted to modify his memory again, but the idea was not appealing. He had deflected her first attempt ill-prepared, and besides, she had wanted to meet a wizard for longer than she could remember. She had not spoken to a magical being since her one bittersweet visit to Diagon Alley, over seven years previously, and had never known one in her adult life.

She lowered her own wand and looked to Potter's feet, which were surrounded by shards of glass.

"The mirror," she said hollowly, in a voice that wasn't her own. "We smashed the mirror."

"Right," he muttered, and flicked his wand at the ornate, but empty wooden frame. "Reparo."

The fragments of glass flew back to whence they came and mirror repaired itself in an instant, perfect, and apparently unspoiled. This was a small and barely impressive display of magic, indeed, a spell that Lily herself had mastered at a very young age. Doing it herself, however, was not the same as seeing it done by another person, and it was too much for her to take without reacting. She felt her knees buckle beneath her and swayed dangerously, clutching Dudley's crib to keep herself on her feet.

"Merlin," said Potter, and took a quick step towards her, seemingly concerned. "Are you ill?"

"No, I am not _ill_," she replied sharply, irritated by her show of weakness. She was not in possession of knees that buckled regularly. "I'm in shock. Can't you tell, as you're so ruddy clever?"

"Well, pardon me for showing concern," he shot back resentfully. "I assure you I wouldn't have, had I known it would offend you so."

"I can do without your concern, thank you," she retorted. She was confused, and flustered, and very, very angry, although she had no real reason to be. The idea that James Potter could be magical, that he could be the person that she had been desperately hoping to meet for so much of her life, was so ludicrous, and unfair, that it hurt her somewhat. Some grand illusion of hers had been shattered. If only he had been Remus Lupin. "A wizard. _You_. It's not possible! How can _you_ be a wizard?"

He blinked at her, and his expression darkened. "Pardon?"

"Well, yes." She stalled, searching for clever words now that she had gathered steam, and finding none. "Explain yourself."

"You wish to know how I could be a wizard?" he echoed, and then she saw a flash of anger, and his voice rose considerably. "How could I be a wizard? How could _you_ be a witch?"

She bristled. "Surely one is just as likely as the other?"

"No!" Potter shouted, and Lily jumped, startled. "One is _not_ just as likely as the other, because I don't know you! I have never in my life heard of you! More to the point, if you truly were a witch, you most certainly would have heard of me!"

"What arrogance!" she cried in response, and let go of Dudley's crib, having been provoked into sturdiness. James Potter, who plotted and schemed and attempted to use her as a pawn in his quest to humiliate Edward Chamberly, had no right to think that she would stoop to falsehoods. "Do you suggest that I must be aware of your existence in order to be what I am? Is your belief in your own importance so inflated that it has driven you to the brink of stupidity?"

"My family are influential!" Potter retorted. "They are known to every member of the wizarding community! It matters not if you are Muggle-born, you would know. Even if you attended Beaubaxtons, you are still English, you would -"

"I did not attend Beaubaxtons!" she interrupted. It was a miracle that Dudley did not wake. "Nor, for that matter, did I attend Durmstrang. Care to insult me again?"

"You were certainly never at Hogwarts," he replied tartly. "Or perhaps darling Edward is mistaken as to your age. Is that the case? Have you fooled him into believing you to be much younger than you are in an attempt to marry into wealth?"

"How _dare_ you?" she cried. "I turned eighteen at the end of January! I would _never_ do such an abominable thing!"

"Then you are barely two months older than I am! You would have been in my year!"

"Has it not occurred to you," she hissed, fuming, having drawn herself up to her fullest height. "That I did, in fact, attend Hogwarts, but you are so ridiculously enamoured of yourself that you simply took no notice of me over the course of the time that we spent there?"

Even as she boiled over she knew that her anger was unfounded – indeed, she had provoked him on purpose – and that she was acting like a spoiled brat. Moreover, she had never shouted at another person before in her life, most certainly not at a man, whose gender alone was enough to elevate him higher than she could ever reach in the collective opinion of the world. Yet, here she was, shouting, enraged, and instead of reeling back in horror or berating her for not knowing her place, he was engaging with her. Arguing with her. _As if she was his equal_, and it made her feel powerful.

She enjoyed it, she realised. She was holding ideas typically decreed to be above her station, and Potter didn't care.

"Oh, of _course_," he was saying, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "I spent seven years in ignorance of your existence and then happened to notice you at a ball where, if you recall correctly, I informed you that you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I am in _awe_ of your immense capacity for logical thinking, Miss Evans!"

It wasn't a compliment. Potter had hurled his estimation of her beauty in her face as if beauty was a disgusting thing, like an insult, and it cowed her just long enough for her to regain some sense of propriety. She shut her mouth and leaned against the crib, face burning with embarrassed at how she had behaved herself, and it must have done something to calm Potter's temper, for he also seemed to relax, and looked quite ashamed of himself.

"Forgive me," he said, and looked down at the floor. "That was uncalled for, and I've been unforgivably rude. I can't imagine what you must think of me."

"No, please, don't apologise," she replied, also looking at the floor. "I was equally rude, if not more so. I believe I goaded you on purpose."

"You were in shock."

"As were you," she pointed out. "And, you know, my name is Lily. After what you've discovered today, you could simply call me that." She sniffed. "Please."

"You seem quite insistent upon being called by your given name," he said, sheepishly. Lily looked up and met his eyes - framed by glasses and floppy black hair – and for a brief moment the look on his face was so very sweet that she almost could have felt fond of him. "The social niceties of Muggles don't call for it, I think."

She considered this for a long moment. She had not been aware that the wizarding world may have operated with a different set of rules as far as etiquette was concerned. Siobhan had never told her as much. "Nobody ever calls me Lily," she eventually ventured, quietly. "And I hate it, truly. I wish that somebody would."

"I have had the nerve to disturb you like this, and upset you besides," said Potter. "I could oblige you in that wish; it's the least that I can do."

"My mother would hardly approve."

"Would you?"

"Pardon?"

He blinked. "Would you approve?"

"Well, yes."

"Then, I don't care much of what your mother might think."

"That's a weighty declaration, coming from the mouth of one so _influential_," she said, but without her previous bite and malice. If anything, it was teasing. He caught the meaning of her tone and grinned, pink-cheeked.

"I sickened myself a little, when I said as much," he admitted. "My family are very well known, I can't lie, but it isn't something that I make a habit of bragging about. Honestly," he added, with a shrug. "You must think me a dreadful cad."

"Oh, I do," she said. "But you are also a wizard, and I've yearned for so long to meet a wizard that I can hardly hold that against you."

"Haven't you met another wizard?" said Potter, and his brows knit together. "I don't understand."

"Not for the longest time," she said, and sighed. "Over seven years. I wasn't permitted to attend school, you see, but my father allowed me to travel to Diagon Alley, and – _Oh_!"

"Oh?"

"Peter!" she cried, eyes shining.

"What about Peter?" said Potter immediately, frowning.

"Ollivander's!" Lily gushed, and she laughed, so silly had she been to forget where she had seen Peter before. "I forgot him! He was so much smaller, and younger, and I never expected to see him again. Not here, oh, _never_ here! I never told him that I wouldn't be attending Hogwarts – I was so ashamed, you see, ashamed that I would have to teach myself. But I remember his face, his face is just the same. _Just_ the same!"

"You taught yourself magic?" said Potter, bewildered.

"Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black," Lily was muttering beneath her breath, but then her attention was back on James, eyes blazing with a sudden and fervent desire to learn anything he could think to tell her. "Are they wizards, too? Are you all wizards, all four? Did you go to Hogwarts together?"

"Well, yes," said James. "We were in Gryffindor house, but do you really mean to say that you actually taught yourself –"

"Do you play Quidditch?" Lily interrupted. "Any of you? All of you? Was that your Snitch I discovered on the beach? I have it locked away in my trunk, you know. I can fetch it. Do you think that -"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Potter muttered under his breath, and raised his voice to shout. "Lily!"

Lily's words died in her throat, and she made a meek hiccupping sound.

"Yes?"

* * *

"Hello," James announced morosely, having trudged into the room, as if fresh from the burial of a beloved friend. Remus, Sirius and Peter gave him their immediate attention, knowing that he would have stood in the doorway and moped until they did. Satisfied that he was the centre of the room's focus, he stumbled to the bed and lay face down upon it.

"I see that you enjoyed your walk," said Remus wryly, but James did not respond. In his corner, Peter set down the scarf he had been knitting and sat up a little straighter, his round face flushed with the delight of having some important gossip to share.

"We have news for you, Prongs!"

"I'm in no mood for news," James responded, his words muffled by a pillow. "I'm troubled."

"Surely not," said Sirius. "Did you not find Lily well?"

"What?" said James sharply, and his head snapped up to attention. He called out in pain and dropped it back down, pouting. "How did you know that?"

"Where else would you have gone?"

"You are a dreadful liar," said Remus. "Have you hurt yourself?"

"Pulled my neck," James mumbled, rubbing the affected area with two of his fingers. "She's a witch."

"How did you know that?" Peter cried, dismayed. "We were planning to tell you the same!"

"I caught her."

"Undressing?" said Sirius, his eyes betraying the first spark of real interest he had had in the matter concerning Lily Evans all day.

"No," said James, and allowed himself a moment to picture such a spectacular scene. He gave an involuntary shudder, and decided to leave that thought until the night, when he was quite alone in one of the guest bedrooms. "Performing magic. She has a wand."

"Yes!" said Peter. "She does indeed! She purchased it in Diagon Alley. That is where I met her first!"

"Hurrah," said Sirius, dryly.

"You can laugh," said Peter, "I was losing sleep over that conundrum."

"Your life is thrilling, Pete."

"She told me as much already," said James in response to Peter, and frowned. "Her parents forbade her to go to Hogwarts, but they allowed her a wand, and books, and she has taught herself for seven years."

"That's unfortunate," said Remus, frowning, and feeling sympathetic, James could only assume. "Although I can imagine that it must be something that happens to other families."

"Some Muggles can be scared of what they don't understand," put in Peter, nodding wisely. "I don't recall her telling me that she wouldn't be joining us, and I never thought to look for her on September first. Perhaps she was ashamed."

"Understandable," said Remus. "How is her magic?"

"Brilliant," said James, with a longing sigh. The mere fact that Lily was a self-taught magical genius only added to her overall appeal, as had the raking down she had given him when he had disturbed her. "She would have Obliviated me, had my own excellence not intervened."

"Does her modesty match yours, too?" said Sirius, with an evil smirk.

James flipped over so that he was lying on his back, and ignored Sirius, knowing that he was merely trying to goad him. Sirius enjoyed the friendships he shared with James, Peter and Remus, and felt threatened whenever he felt that their group was in danger of being broken or damaged. This much he knew after seven years of brotherhood. "She could have been one of the best in the year, had she gone, as she should have. If she had gotten the proper teaching. I disagree with her parents, and I can't forgive them for it."

"It was their choice, James," said Peter gently. "She was only a child at the time."

"It's not right," James insisted. "They ought to pay for it, and she should be part of our world. Will be. I'm going to help her."

"Oh?" said Remus.

"I'll have to think on it, first, and work out a real plan, but I offered my help and she has accepted. I am going to teach her to Apparate."

"Charitable of you," said Sirius. "I'm sure you offered only out of the goodness of your heart, and not for any other shameful reason."

"I did, as a matter of fact," said James, and glared at his friend. "I am of sterling heart. I am a kind soul. I offered out of sympathy, nothing more. I also told her that I would take her to Hogwarts."

"And enrol her?" said Sirius, with a snort. "I think she's a little too old."

"No," said James, and scowled. Sirius' attitude towards Lily Evans was beginning to grate on him. "No. I just want her to see it. She should see it. She should have gone there, with us."

"But she did not," said Sirius, as if that settled everything, and James ought to have forgotten the subject. "So what does it matter?"

"She ought to have," said James angrily. "She could have been in Gryffindor. She would have been in Gryffindor."

"How can you be so sure of that?" said Peter.

"She would have," James insisted, getting into his stride. Dramatics and theatrics were what he revelled in, but more importantly, he felt truly sure of his own convictions at that moment. "I would have wanted her in Gryffindor. She should have been in Gryffindor. She should be part of our world, not part of theirs, not with Chamberly." He sat up quickly, and with purpose. He had a pronouncement to make, and pronouncements should not be made lying down. After all, why _should_ she have been part of that world? "Chamberly shouldn't have her. He can't have her. _I_ want her."

"She's a woman, James," said Remus. "She is not something to possess."

"I know that!" said James hotly, with fire in his belly. "I do. _He_ doesn't! He wants to own her, and boast of her, and parade her about liked a prized pig. I want – I don't want her in _that_ way. I want – Merlin's sake, I'll let her parade _me_ around like a prized pig, if that's what she wants."

"You're being sanctimonious," said Sirius, and James boldly threw a book at him.

"Please," said Remus wearily. "Stop throwing my possessions."

"It's not sanctimony," James insisted. "It's heroism."

"Heroism, James?" said Peter, raising an eyebrow. James scowled. Peter's ability to raise one eyebrow had been a bone of contention with him for many years, as he was unable to do it himself.

"Perhaps heroism is a bit much, then," he admitted, annoyed. "But it's something good, something great. She deserves better than the life she has and I'm going to help her seize it. She'll be free from her family, and free to make her own choices. And then," he added, and faltered. "And then I'll marry her."

"I thought you wanted her to be free to make her own choices," said Sirius, and rolled his eyes. "I believe that making her marry you will step on that ambition, just a little."

"I won't make her," he said, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "She'll choose it."

"You can't be sure."

"Yes, I can," he insisted loudly. "It's fate. I know it is. She's meant for me and I for her. Why else would I have met her at this time? You wouldn't know about it, Sirius, you got a T in Divination."

"As did you!"

"Only to keep you from feeling inadequate!"

"Children!" Remus shouted, effectively shutting up both James and Sirius. "You'll disturb the whole household if you don't quieten down."

"It's his fault," said James, sinking backwards into the pillows, sulking like a petulant child. He had expected a hero's salutation, and instead he was being disparaged. "He's deliberately being obtuse."

"Said the pot to the cauldron," said Sirius, scowling darkly. "Why do you care so much about this bloody girl, in any case?"

"Because," said James, and set his jaw determinedly. "I think I might be in love with her."

"Dramatic," said Remus.

"Pathetic," said Sirius.

"I'll fetch the Firewhiskey, shall I?" said Peter.

**I am deeply, deeply sorry, you guys.**


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